


Kaleidoscope Flutter

by Sanctified_Jasper



Category: Multi-Fandom, Winx Club
Genre: Anthology, Occasional swearing, a healthy does of crack, oneshots, winx club canon divergence, winx club cross-overs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:47:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26966167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctified_Jasper/pseuds/Sanctified_Jasper
Summary: Winx Club based shorts, one-shots and abandoned story ideas.Includes the occasional cross-over
Relationships: Winx Club Friendships
Kudos: 9





	1. Lambades

**Author's Note:**

> Both 'kaleidoscope' and 'flutter' are collective nouns for butterflies.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winx Club x Harry Potter - Alternate Timeline*
> 
> Vanessa Peters and her sister Emma Granger haven't seen each other since Emma returned to the country of their birth to become a dentist.  
> They reconnect over concerns about their daughters' strange abilities.  
> Cousins Bloom Peters and Hermione Granger grow up playing Fairy Princess together.
> 
> *Harry Potter Timeline has been shifted back to 2001 instead of 1991, Winx Club Timeline remains 'the same', beginning in 2004
> 
> Abandoned fic idea / One Shot

It was a relief, in a way, to find out their family wasn't suffering a curse.

The truth may or may not have been better.

When Bloom Peters began experiencing strange things, like her baby bunny's fur turning blue, her mother had freaked out. Vanessa and Mike tried to rationalise it, after all, strange things happened all the time, there was sure to be a rational explanation.

But then at her Kindergarten, a mean girl named Mitzy had convinced one of the bigger boys to shove Bloom's head in a toilet.

His shirt had started smouldering, and before he could force her head past the rim, he'd had to let go, to rip his shirt of, to run screaming from the room as it caught fire with inexplicable speed.

Bloom had walked out crying, while everyone else ran.

Beneath her feet the floor melted.

Vanessa might have tried dealing with it alone, just her and Mike and what ever exorcist she could find. But her sister Emma emailed her, looking for a sympathetic shoulder: Hermione had been experiencing strange phenomenon as well, recently they'd gone to the library, and when another child had stolen her book, the whole place had become a labyrinth filled with books that tried to eat people.

When Hermione had calmed down, the library had gone back to normal, and the family had run home, waiting for someone to come. Who, they weren't sure, possibly the police.

Only, no one else had seemed to remember the next day.

The sisters emailed back and forth for two weeks before they remembered a small, tiny bed time story their mother used to tell them. About why they'd had to leave England for America when the girls had been infants: their family was trying to outrun a curse.

None of the four adults, not Vanessa and Mike, nor Emma and Dan, wanted to believe the curse was real, but both their girls had freakish things happening around them, what else could it have been?

So, over the course of two months, Vanessa sold her small flower shop, Mike finished work at the fire department, Bloom was officially pulled from her school, and the trio moved to England, along with the still blue Kiko, (which confused _and_ amused the quarantine officers who watched over him until he could rejoin the family).

Mike started working at the local fire department, Vanessa managed to start a new flower shop, and Bloom joined Hermione at her kindergarten. When ever they had time, the family searched for answers, trying to track down the origins of their family's curse, trying to understand how and why it affected Bloom when, though she was their daughter, she shared no blood link with them.

As they grew, Bloom and Hermione (and Kiko of course,) became inseparable, though the strange incidents never again became quite so terrifying as the sudden fire and demonic mazes, they continued to happen.

The family kept looking, but every lead turned into a dead end, nothing in their research into the occult went anywhere. It became clear to them they were either on a fools errand, or they were looking in the wrong place.

Hermione and Bloom tried to help as well, reading everything they could on fairytales in the libraries, and Bloom fell head over heels in love with fairies. Hermione latched onto her cousin's enthusiasm, and the duo began playing 'fairy princesses.'

The girls were ten when, during a camping trip to the Forest of Dean, their parents realised that, when they played 'fairy princesses,' the duo often caused strange things to happen _on command_.

There was a brief but intense freak out amongst the adults as they wondered if the girls had been imbued with the dark powers of Satan as a result of Vanessa and Emma's parents selling their grandchildren's souls for wealth.

A brief trip to a church quickly disproved that theory though, for which the parents were _very_ thankful.

When Hermione was eleven, and Bloom had a month left of being ten, Hermione received a rather peculiar letter.

The letter is written in green ink, it is addressed not just to Hermione's house, but to her room, and it is sealed with a dob of purple wax.

The letter itself is... strange...

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. Of Wizards)_

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_We are please to inform you that you have a place in Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry for the year of 2001. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
Term begins on 1 September 2001. We await your owl by no later than 31 July 2001._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall  
Deputy Headmistress_

“Well that sounds stupid,” Hermione said into the silence after she'd finished reading her letter to her family. “We're not witches, we're fairies.”

“Why didn't I get a letter?” Bloom pouted, looking over her cousin's shoulder to see the letter for herself.

“Maybe you have to be eleven and two months?” Hermione tilted, raising the letter so Bloom could see it clearly, “otherwise why would they send me a letter for a school term that doesn't start for another _ten months_?!”

The girls looked up at their parents who were in varying stages of 'I'm done,' and 'bugger it, I'm out'.

The pair shrugged and turned back to the letter. Kiko had climbed up the chair leg of Hermione's seat to investigate the matter, and was carefully separating the letter from other sheets of parchment. Because the letter which knew where in her house Hermione slept, had come with more than just Hermione's missive from the Deputy Head, there was a book list too.


	2. Isekai Blooming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winx Club -> Genre change  
> Bloom is a generic anime hero, the Winx are her Harem, Kiko is the talking animal companion
> 
> Bloom goes camping and accidentally walks into another world. She's more concerned by the change in Kiko.
> 
> Warning: swearing 
> 
> Abandoned fic idea / One Shot

Bloom grinned to herself as she pulled the obnoxiously pink car into the car park, coming to a halt equidistant from the faded white lines that marked out the second last parking spot in the very empty lot.

Stepping out into the warm summer air, Bloom checked her work.

“Nailed it,” she said to Kiko, who was secured in a travel case in the back seat. The car belonged to Eldora, the eccentric, pink-loving grandmother of her best friend Selina. Eldora had enjoyed calling herself their 'fairy-godmother' when the girls were younger, so when Selina's family had decided to go on a long distance trip, Eldora had given Bloom the keys to her car. It was a pity gift, Bloom knew, since _her_ family was staying in Gardenia for the summer holidays, but Bloom was basically getting a car for the summer, so she shot her pride in the face gleefully and accepted the keys with a promise to take care of the vehicle.

She'd used it to go to the beach, duck to the grocery store for her mum, and to just drive around with her recently acquired drivers license. Today, she'd driven the short distance to the forest just outside of Gardenia, to the camping grounds for a three day camping trip, just her and Kiko.

Her parents had been too busy with work, which she understood, even though it hurt and sucked a lot. Bloom was choosing to look at the situation as a good way to practice her independence.

That didn't mean she turned down the slim, baby blue baton taser her father handed her before she left, or the home brew pepper-spray her mother made sure to slip into her utility belt. She was adventurous, not stupid.

“Alright,” Bloom said, once again to Kiko as she helped him out of his carry case and into his special 'adventure vest'. “Vest, check!” She set him down next to the car and stepped around to open the boot, pulling out and shouldering the various equipment.

“Tent, chair, sleeping bag, pillow, blankets, change of clothes, fire starting, cooking, first aid, repellent, food, art supplies.” She paused looking to Kiko, “I know what you're thinking, but I can totally carry all of this in one go, we don't need to make two trips.”

Kiko looked at her, but offered no comment.

“Right,” Bloom added her 'anti-creep stick' to the load, and shut the boot. She propped her things up by a pillar marking the edge of the car park, and sighed as she realised she'd forgotten the water and Kiko's case in the back seat. She pulled both out and added them to the increasingly intimidating pile of stuff, before making sure the car was locked with the sun visors in place.

“Do look at me like that,” Bloom said to Kiko, who hadn't been looking at her at all, “I can totally handle this, I've just got to organise everything... just so. Like tetris, but with _stuff_.”

It took almost fifteen minutes for Bloom to figure out how to load herself up with the supplies in a way that didn't make her want to immediately drop _something_.

“Kiko,” she called out, waiting for her rabbit to lop over to her before she began heading down the clearly marked trail to the camp grounds.

The air under the trees was much cooler than in the car park, a light breeze ambling through the trunks and undergrowth. The walk was pleasant, just her and Kiko, and the birds somewhere in the trees.

And the tingling in her body that was probably the result of the over abundance of bags cutting off her circulation.

About twenty minutes down the trail, Bloom stopped, and looked back. Kiko came to a halt, making a curious noise, but Bloom just shook her head and started walking towards the campsite again. Ten minutes later, Bloom huffed.

“Oh my god, how far is this site? I could have sworn the sign said a ten minute walk.”

“Yeah,” said a masculine voice, “even with all that stuff you've got, we should have been there ages ago.”

“Right?” Bloom said, her body getting sore form carrying all the weight, “and have you noticed the trees? Like what even is that one?”

“Beats me, not a tree doctor, your mum might know though,” the voice said, “ohh, send her a picture on your phone.”

“Nah, if I put this down I'm not gonna-” Bloom stopped talking, stopped walking, and stopped breathing. Kiko went on for another few hops before he turned back to her with a curious expression on his face.

“What?” He asked, “what's wrong now?”

The faint shadow of her lashes disappeared from her peripheral vision as Bloom's eyes widened, her jaw dropped and she gasped slowly.

“Bloom?” Kiko waddled towards her for a step.

“What the HELL!?” The rabbit stumbled back, his neon orange vest scrunching as he toppled onto his back and twisted to right himself.

“ _What_!?” He demanded.

“How long have you been able to talk!?” Bloom was trying to stay calm, but her rabbit had suddenly begun speaking, which was not normal, and despite how much she loved fairy stories, it was very unexpected, and frankly just weird.

“Uhhhh....ooohhh, holy crap, I _can_ talk! And _think_ , like, big thoughts,” Kiko looked at her wide eyed.

“What _the fuck?_ ” Bloom whispered, but Kiko had about as much information as she did, which was to say: none.

“I don't know, but thinking back, I think my intelligence has been building the longer we walked.” Kiko titled his head and spasmed slightly in shock. “Also, I'm pretty sure that's not the direction we just came from.”

Bloom frowned as Kiko pointed behind her, because yes, obviously that's the direction they'd come from. She twisted around and-

“Holy shit, that is not where we just came from,” Bloom confirmed, the summer forests of Gardenia with their occasional shrub were gone, behind her was a densely populated forest of sprawling greens and verdant plants she'd never seen before. Even the trunks were vastly different shades than the ones she'd walked past. She turned back to Kiko, and swore.

The path that had lain ahead was not the same she had just turned from, any sense of familiarity was gone, the winding trail cutting through more of the same dense woodlands.

“We, are very lost,” Bloom said, though that was already obvious to both of them.

“Umm, I can't smell the car farts anymore,” Kiko said, worry evident in his voice.

“What?” Bloom gave him a confused look, her fear temporarily belayed by the odd statement.

“Yeah, cars and stuff, the gas that comes out their buts, it smells worse in the city than out here, but I could still smell it until a second ago, like, it's just gone.”

“Well... shit,” Bloom didn't know what else to say, and she was only seconds away from clicking her heels together three time. “So... forwards or back?”

Kiko rubbed at his ear and said “that would depend on how you feel about answering calls for help?”

“Why?”

“There's something going on that way,” Kiko said, lifting his arm to point in the direction of what should have been the camp grounds.

“Well, people might mean answers?”

With nothing better to do, the pair began walking again, as quick as they could without dropping their stuff.

Thankfully the 'people' weren't far, though only one of them was what Bloom would have immediately recognised as a person.

“Sunlight streaming!” There was a young blonde woman in the clearing, dressed in orangey-bronze and golds, she twirled a staff made of a white material that seemed to glow, before firing off what Bloom mentally dubbed a magic laser-beam.

The magic laser-beam cut through a swathe of several small imp like creatures, a Bloom was impressed, what ever was going on, this girl was _good_.

Some of the imp-things noticed Bloom and Kiko and headed their way. Kiko spotted them first, and drew Bloom's attention to them.

“Oh crap,” she dumped her stuff on a convenient nearby tree stump and pulled out her 'anti-creep stick' just in time to hit one of the creatures with a back-swing. The metal baseball bat made a satisfying crack against its skull and sent it flying for a few feet.


	3. Ludumix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winx Club -> Canon Divergence, Do-over, Gamer AU
> 
> Several years after Season 7, The Winx Club go in search of an artefact to help the defeat the latest bad-guy, but it comes with a cost. Bloom chooses to pay it and finds herself waking up years in the past in a reality that's not quite like the one she just left.
> 
> Abandoned fic Idea / One Shot

Ludumix

The Winx entered the Ancient Hall cautiously, warily looking around for the Archaic Fairy who was said to dwell with in.

The further in they walked, the thicker the air seemed to become.

Suddenly a voice called out, from everywhere at once.

“You're all so young to carry so much power,” the air rippled several metres in front of the Winx, and a woman appeared, pale skinned and dressed in flowing black silks, “be careful you do not mistake it for strength, or you will find yourselves on the loosing side.”

The Winx shared a confused look, the woman's words not quite making sense. Bloom stepped forwards from the group, closer the stranger.

“We're the Winx Club, we're looking for Verja, are you her?”

The woman sighed, and something about it sounded disappointed, but she gave a nod nonetheless, “Verja is my name, yes, but I doubt you're looking for me so-much as something I possess.”

“We came to retrieve the Archus Stone from you, we-”

Verja held up a hand, cutting Bloom off, “I don't care why you think you need it, the question is: can you pay for it?”

Bloom frowned, and looked back at the other Winx for a moment.

“Pay?” Bloom asked.

Verja sighed again, sounding even more put-upon, “yes child, pay, you didn't think you'd get it for free did you? Without effort?”

Stella huffed and rolled her eyes and almost stamped one foot, “just tell us what you want!”

Verja looked the six young women over, her gaze felt like it pieced into their souls.

“All of you have the power of Mythix and have possessed a Time Stone, therefore, you are capable of paying the price I want.” Verja sun around and walked to the far end of the Hall, as she moved through the patches of weak light from outside, the Winx realised her skin was not a standard hue, but rather a pale, pale lavender.

They watched Verja move away for several seconds before it occurred to them they should probably follow, and traced her path through the Hall.

At the far end they found several pews, some of the bench like seats were broken or toppled over, but the front four still remained upright and facing the wall. Or perhaps they faced the mosaic on the wall. The Winx tried not to flinch at the sight of it, but something in the nonsensical pattern of multi-coloured tiles hurt their eyes.

“I can tell you all care for one another, that this group is important in all of your lives, therefore, the price for the Archus Stone is this: One of you must give up everything you have achieved with this group. One of you must give up and walk away from this Circle of friends forever.”

The Winx rejected the idea soundly.

“There must be another way!”

“We'll find something else that can defeat Pravum!”

Verja flinched at the familiar name, but then scoffed, “if you think you can defeat Pravum without the Archus Stone, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“I'll do it,” Bloom said after a moment, “I'll pay the price, but you must guarantee that my friends, that the Winx Club receive the Archus Stone!”

“Of course,” Verja sneered, insulted, “I'm not one to go back on my word.”

“Bloom No!”

“Don't do this Bloom, we can find another way to win!”

“Yeah, a new transformation or something!”

Bloom shook her head as her friends clamoured for another idea, “we already know how to win, you'll all just need to do it without me, and I know that you can, you are all so brave and strong and together you can accomplish anything!”

Verja rolled her eyes as the Winx said their tearful goodbyes before finally leading bloom to the Magical Circle at the base of the Mosaic.

“Before I do this,” Verja told her quietly, “for when you wonder about this later: Every choice you ever made has created different versions of you, different timelines stretching out into eternity, completely unfathomable and uncountable. Every possibility has happened, every version of you that ever could have been is real, but the you that you perceive, the universe and reality that you perceive? They are the only ones of consequence. Your friends will be fine, you aren't really leaving them, from their perspective.”

Bloom frowned, brows furrowing, the wings of her Sublinix form fluttered slightly with nerves as Verja stepped back and activated the circle.

* * *

_Bloom felt a rush of energy fall through her, like a transformation taking over her, rejuvenating every cell of her body._

_For a second she felt dizzy, like it was too much energy, then suddenly_ it was gone with a sensation not unlike throwing off a too heavy quilt.

The circle deactivated and nothing seemed to have changed, Verja and the rest of the Winx stood outside the circle watching her.

“I don't understand,” Bloom blurted out, but Verja just laughed.

“I know you don't, now here, step out of the circle and take this-” Verja held out a stone for Bloom to take as the Winx Club member stepped out of the circle, “-and get out.”

The Winx were all too happy to follow her advice and left quickly, talking amongst themselves as they went, ignoring Verja as she settled onto one of the pews by the mosaic.

“Do you think it was just a test to see if we really needed it?” Aisha asked, and the others were happy to jump on that explanation.

But Flora frowned, “I wonder why the Mythix and Time Stone were important?”

“Oh,” Musa said, “that's right, she said we were 'capable' of making the sacrifice because we had them.”

“Bloom,” Tecna said, “do you have any idea why they might have mattered?”

But Bloom could only shake her head, “no, I think something did happen, but... I really don't know what.”

Stella flipped her hair over her shoulder, “well whatever, we have a bad-guy to fight, no point focusing on this mystery.”

“yeah... let's go.”

* * *

_Bloom felt a rush of energy fall through her, like a transformation taking over her, rejuvenating every cell of her body._

_For a second she felt dizzy, like it was too much energy, then suddenly_ she was falling but not falling. The world around her warped and faded, and she felt something shift, the remnant energy of the Time Stone and her Mythix transformation swirled through her, protecting her, but also stripping her bare.

When she finally landed her body felt heavy in a way it hadn't in years, the constant thrum of her magical powers was barely a trickle through her veins.

“Bloom hurry up or you'll be late for school!” Her mother's voice cut through the fog in Bloom's mind and she sat up with a jolt, a long forgotten fear reaction sending ice water down her spine.

But she paused before she could throw off the quilt of her bed, her mother, Vanessa, stood beside Bloom's bed in their Gardenia home.

“Mum?”

Vanessa, who'd been amused by Bloom's sudden awakening at the threat of school, seemed to sense something was wrong and her amusement vanished as she settled next to her daughter.

“Sweetie? What's wrong?”

Bloom looked around her room, frantically trying to catalogue everything.

This room was old. Not in a worn down sense, but in the sense it had been years since most of the things in this room had been there.

“I... don't know,” Bloom managed to get out.

“Do you feel sick? School did just finish, now that your body has time to rest it might be-”

“No, I... I think I just had a weird dream? Maybe?”

Vanessa hugged her daughter, who relaxed in her arms.

Eventually they parted, and though Vanessa offered to let Bloom sleep in, since she wasn't feeling well, Bloom assured her mother that she would be alright.

“Really mum, I'll be down in a little while.”

“...okay, but if you start to feel bad, you let me know.” Vanessa hummed thoughtfully, “although, if you're coming down, don't take too long, your father and I have a surprise for you.”

“Okay, just let me get dressed.”

As soon as Vanessa left the room, Bloom collapsed back onto her bed for a long minute just to breathe.

'This has to be a result of the sacrifice,' Bloom thought to herself, 'this day feels familiar, like I've lived it before... Verja said I'd have to give up the achievements I'd made with my friends... and... Time Stone... was I... sent back in time?'

With a sudden explosive motion, Bloom swung herself up and out of bed, padding over to the mirror in her room.

She looked young.

'This isn't how the Time Stones work. But, Verja said something about Mythix too? I wonder if Ms. Faragonda will know what this is about?' Bloom decided to teleport to Alfea and as her former headmistress, who at the very least, might be able to point in the right direction.

Bloom huffed a small laugh to herself, no matter how long ago she'd graduated from Alfea, some days it was like she was an eternal student.

Bloom changed out of her pyjamas quickly and into her (now nostalgic) bell bottom jeans and crop top.

“Magic Winx!” Bloom chanted, picturing her needs, and letting the magic answer her call. The Form washed over her but it felt unfamiliar somehow, the energy pattern was not one she knew. It was over in a second, but the reflection staring back at her was both familiar and not.

It was Bloom, but the form was... new.

It looked reminiscent of her very first transformation, a sleeveless blue outfit, but it was a dress rather than a top and skirt and it lacked the sparkles of her first form. She thought the boots might have gone further up her legs, but it was honestly so long ago she couldn't say for sure.

The wings were small, the shape the same, but there was a strange scrolling patter in the veins.

“What is this?” Bloom asked aloud, hoping somehow the universe would answer her.

And it did.

With a soft chime, a pale blue rectangle appeared before her, like a normal holographic message, but with fancy scrolling patterns along the sides – the same as those on her new-not-new wings – and no source in sight.

| **Ludumix – The Gamer Form**  
| The Ludumix Form is an Ancient Lost Form  
| capable of rewriting the universe and warping  
| it to fit a new set of rules.  
| The pre-requisit for earning the Ludumix is  
| unknown to all but the Ludus, creators of the  
| Form.

“...I feel like the Mythix and Time Stones might have been involved somehow,” Bloom said sardonically.

| **Smartness Cookie**  
| Congratulations, Your observation showed  
| basic logic based on personal observations!  
| The Ludumix grants you:  
| 1 x Smartness Cookie

“Are you... mocking me?” Bloom didn't even know who she was talking to, but she felt mocked.

| The Ludumix would never mock the  
| Host-Player.  
| Would the Host-Player like to complete  
| Ludumix Integration?

Bloom felt like she'd be more weirded out if she hadn't known several transformations that came with spirits, such as the Spirits (or Guardians) of Sirenix.

“What does integration do?” Bloom asked, sure that the spirit of a fairy transformation would do anything to hurt her, but cautious all the same.

| The Ludumix comes with a Special Ability  
| called [Gamer's Reality]. Once Integration  
| is complete the Host-Player can use the  
| Ability at any time. If left un-integrated,  
| then the Ability can only be used during  
| transformation.

Bloom fought off the urge to roll her eyes, “and what does [Gamer's Reality] do?”

| This Reality is a Video Game, but you only  
| see with the eyes of an NPC and are blind to it.  
| [Gamer's Reality] will allow you to see this  
| world the way it really is. Or you can ignore it.  
| Pretend it's no different from the Reality you  
| knew before.

“But... what do I _do_ with it?”

| What ever you want to do.  
| What ever you can think to do.  
| There is no grand purpose, it's is just the  
| way this Reality _is_.


	4. Winx Survival - SAO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winx Club Canon Divergence (post season 3) | Sword Art Online*
> 
> After defeating Valtor, the Winx Club were called to protect the Magical Dimension at large and found themselves often separated from one another. Determined to Spend some time together doing something fun, Bloom invites the Winx to vacation with her on Earth for a week or two.  
> To help the girls 'get away from it all' Vanessa and Mike get their hands on a copy of a new Virtual Reality game that's about to be released.  
> Tecna brings some Zenith tech to Earth so they can all play together, but there's something sinister afoot, something that will affect Every Game launching on the new NerveGear operating System Cardinal.
> 
> *This takes place in a crossover with Sword Art Online, at the same time as the first arc of SAO, but does not take place in Aincrad, the Winx are on a separate server playing a separate game. SAO is just the background plot device.
> 
> Warning: Foul Language, Swearing, depictions of violence against video game villains, hints of psychological horror
> 
> Abandoned Fic Ideas / Draft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one version of this fic, chapter 5 is a different version, more streamlined (shorter) and with less focus on looting

Enchanted Kingdom Online.

_Enter a world of magical realism, based on the ancient legends of Earth's forgotten past. Battle against mystical foes, and return light to the Kingdoms. Explore the far reaches and the hidden wilds of the lands in a high reality immersion, discover lost lore and unearth a wealth of secrets, rise through the ranks of the army, or set your sights on the crown._

_Anything is possible._

* * *

Bloom shrugged as Stella handed the casing to Tecna, “My parents managed to get a copy for the advanced server opening, only ten thousand hard copies, and I just thought... it might be a nice change of pace to our usual 'Fate of the Magical Dimension' adventures.”

“So we'd be fairies pretending to be fairies?” Musa read over Tecna's shoulder.

“I don't think that's an option,” Aisha said recalling what she'd read in the booklet, “I think we play as 'normal Earth humans.'”

“It does sound interesting,” Flora admitted, “but I'd like to spend some time at home before we get distracted by a game.”

“Early launch isn't for another two weeks,” Bloom said, “will that be enough time? Besides, it's not like we'll be spending every waking minute _in_ the game.”

“True,” Stella allowed, “but how long will it take to get to the good stuff, getting our own kingdom and having lots of riches and hot servants?”

The group laughed, “I think that's late game stuff Stell'.”

“Can I take a look at this 'NerveGear,'” Tecna asked, handing the casing back to Bloom. Bloom took the case and slipped it into her bag, pulling out a helmet to give Tecna. “Urgh, you remember what I said about your 'latest model' Earth phone?” Bloom pouted as she remembered, “This? Is worse. Let me talk to my parents and see if I can get some Virtual Diving Rigs.”

Bloom took back the helmet with a frowned, opened her mouth to say more, and was steamrolled by Tecna, “besides, can a single hard copy support six players? I'd have to figure a work around for that any way. And if it's Early Access for a set number of players, the system might not like the extra players. Still, ten thousand? It is possible five players might not log on right away, and the system might think it's just multiple accounts from the same 'Gear... hm...”

“So we're all in?” Musa asked, four out of five of her friends nodded with varying enthusiasm, but by the way Tecna was making plans, they could guess she was in too.

* * *

“No, that one goes in the next socket to the left.”

“Right, sorry Tecna,” Aisha shifted the connector plug into the correct socket. From the doorway Vanessa watched the girls put together the assembly in Bloom's room. Half of her things had been rearranged like a tetris game, stacked and folded to fit all six of the VDRs Tecna had brought and leave enough room to move around them.

“Are you girls sure you'll be alright?”

“Yes mum, we'll be fine.” Bloom stepped out of the mess to hug the older woman, “I still wish you and dad had of been able to take the day off and join us.”

“Me too sweetie, but I have orders to fill and your dad doesn't really feel comfortable with the idea of virtual reality.”

“Yeah... oh, has any one shown you the intercom thingy?”

“It's not an 'intercom thingy,'” Tecna corrected from her place by the hub, where she was checking the program installation.

“Totally an intercom thingy,” Bloom mouthed to her mother.

“Why don't you show me before I head off to work?”

* * *

“So, I was looking up reviews from some of the beta testers online,” Bloom paused to lick pizza sauce from her thumb, “and apparently the 'high reality immersion' thing, is about the game mechanics.”

Tecna went for another slice of garlic bread, “how so?”

“Well, from what I understand, the game doesn't have an inventory system, you have to carry all your stuff around with you.”

“No carry-space?” Stella grimaced, “that's gonna suck.”

“But what about the other stuff,” Aisha asked.

“There's still levels and skills and quests and stuff, but maps are all physical. Oh, there's supposed to be different languages in the game, and the system will translate for you for most of them as you 'learn' them. And from what I read, if you get a private residence, you can set permissions so other players can't enter.”

“Um,” Flora fidgeted with a piece of paper towel, “something I've been wondering, I know games give you 'avatars,' but how will we find each other in the game?”

“Well,” Bloom and Tecna both stopped, each gesturing for the other to go first, in the end Bloom went ahead.

“Well, there are multiple spawn points in the game for new players, but there should also be a keyword entry um, thing, during character creation you just put in a key word, and any one else who uses the same key word will spawn in the same place as you.”

“We'll be using 'Winx Club,' obviously,” Musa cut in, “but what about recognising one another?”

Tecna held up her hand, and Bloom waved for her to go ahead.

“What I was going to mention, was that the rigs from Zenith do deep scans of our bodies, before starting, so they know if something's going wrong, that data can be set to automatically apply itself to character creation, we can also use our real names, so there shouldn't be any trouble with that, as long as we all spawn in the same place.”

“Should we go set that up now?” Aisha asked.

“If everyone's finished lunch?” Tecna replied, “we still have almost an hour until launch, which gives us way more than enough time.”

* * *

“Okay, ten minutes everyone, does anyone need to visit the bathroom?”

“Oh, me!”

“Hurry up!”

* * *

“Everyone ready?”

“Yes!”

“Don't forget: it's Winx Club with a capital 'W' and 'C' with a space between.”

“We _know_!”

“Link. Start!”

* * *

Something almost sapient lingers; crafted by the hands of men, build for the purposes of monitoring the players.

Touched by the faintest breath of magic it Awakens.

* * *

The Winx found themselves in a white place, bright and with no end in sight.

“What... is this place?” Musa's words were eaten up by the pearly void.

“Is this part of the game?” Flora looked to Bloom, who shook her head unsure.

“There's something erroneous in your programming.”

The Winx spun, looking for the source of the unfamiliar voice. In the middle of the empty space between them, a form coalesced. A young girl in deep red eyed them all in turn.

“Are you hackers?”

“No,” Tecna sounded offended by the idea, “We're using different interface hardware, VDRs from my home, not the NerveGear.”

The girl in red considered Tecna's words, before slowly nodding.

“The game has already begun, and I can not stop it, but you six at least will be free of the ultimate price.”

“What does that mean?” Aisha stepped closer to the girl.

“Cardinal-Prime, the operating system all the games were created on, has a secret program, a hidden directive. I will allow your programming to remain.”

Before any more questions could be asked, the girl disappeared, as did the white void, and the Winx found themselves in a dungeon of dark, dripping stone.

“What was that all about?” Stella asked, looking around in distaste.

“No idea,” Bloom shook her head, but Tecna looked contemplative.

“It is possible...”

“What possible Tecna?” Flora touched her friend's shoulder gently.

“It is possible that our appearance is so far outside what the character creation is that our character models pinged some kind of alert. But I feel like it's more than that.”

“You might be right on that account, are first level character's supposed to have stats this high?” Musa turned so the others could see her character sheet.

“No,” Bloom shook her head, “new players should have almost nothing in their stats, and they definitely shouldn't have Graces,” she pointed to a spot on Musa's screen where it listed a single Grace: Aria of the Four Winds.

The others began checking their character stats.

“I have ridiculous stats too and, something called, Luminous Being?” Stella said.

“Heart of the Forest,” Flora added.

Aisha let out a 'huh before sharing hers, “Born of the Tides.”

“Fire Soul,” Bloom gave hers before the five turned to Tecna.

“Analytical Accuracy,” Tecna replied to the unasked question. “I think this is what that girl was talking about, and I think I know what happened. When we did the scans so we could use our real looks for our avatars, well the Rigs are from Zenith, they're techno-magical in origin, and while, from what Bloom discovered, players here can't use magic, the Rigs may have tried to translate our real physical and magical abilities into a format compatible with the game.”

“Huh,” the girls shared a look and burst out laughing.

“No wonder that girl thought we were hackers! Oh my gosh, do you think she was actually one of the AIs, I heard they were supposed to be very life like, and there's meant to be several of them in each server for different operation purposes or something.”

“Well, you know what colour she was wearing right?” Stella looked at her friends.

“Red?” Aisha guessed.

“ _Cardinal_. Red,” Stella replied. The girls shared another look, this one akin to the times they realised they'd gotten away with something Griselda would have given them detention for.

“Holy crap, you don't think?”

“It wold be a weird coincidence if she wasn't.”

“Well, whatever the case,” Musa interrupted, “how about we theorise after we escape from this place.” She gestured to the dank prison.

The girls quickly agreed.

“So how do we-”

“Oh!” Tecna's exclamation cut Stella off.

“What?!”

“Sorry, I think I just figured out how my powers are translating,” Tecna looked a little abashed, “I can see the weak points on the door, they're being highlighted.”

“I don't see anything,” Stella admitted, “does your power say how to break 'em?”

“No, but I think... try looking around for anything we can use to lever the door,” the girls looked around their dank cell, they even checked the small pockets of their basic trousers.

“We have some straw, a small bench, a bucket, a few pieces of scrap metal and a few worn blankets,” Musa summarised their 'findings' a few minutes later.

“We can use the bench and the bucket to lever the door,” Tecna decided, her vision displaying the various components of each item and their strength.

“Should we take the blankets with us,” Flora asked, “I mean, I know they're worn, but look at us, light shifts, thin trousers and basic flats, we could be walking into any kind of weather, and we can always drop them if it turns out we don't need the added layers.”

“Or we can use them to carry stuff,” Aisha added. The group made agreeing noises, and while Tecna and Aisha got the bench and bucket into position, the others sorted the blankets, figuring out how to tie them in a way that didn't get in the way of their arms or pull back on their throats.

“This will probably be loud,” Tecna warned, before giving a five count and pushing down on the bench, Aisha put one foot against a horizontal bar and added some pull to the door, swinging it free on the hinged side.

Tecna had been right, the metal made a jarring, ear assaulting screech as it moved.

“Argh,” Musa pressed the heels of her palms over her ears, “that was more than loud.”

“Are you okay,” Flora placed a hand on Musa's lower back.

“Yeah, my hearing's just really good, so that was way louder for me I think. I'll be fine in a moment.” She frowned, “Does anyone else hear clanking sounds?”

She got five affirmatives, Tecna stuck her head out into the hallway.

“I think there's guards coming, we should move, this is a bad place to fight bad guys.”

The Winx slipped out through the unhinged door, Tecna and Aisha donning their blanket cloaks once they were through.

“Away or towards?” Stella asked, eyeing the two possible directions.

“Well,” Bloom began, “this should be a level one scenario, and while we are level one, we do have much higher stats. But at the same time, if it's a story thing....”

“It might have been programmed to be unwinnable regardless of stats,” Tecna finished.

“So we evade and hide,” Aisha confirmed, moving away from the clanking, “Tecna, see if you can get a look at the guards though, your power might be able to tell us if we can fight them.”

“Right,” the six girls made their way down the corridor.

“Shi- it's a dead end,” Stella hissed.

“Are you sure, how can you see fro-”

“She's right,” Tecna cut Bloom off, “the torch alcoves, split up.”

The girls pressed themselves into the small alcove in the walls between the lines of cells. Tecna moved so she could just see around the edge of her alcove, and the guards finally came into view.

[Basic Armour Lvl 02]

Information spilled across her vision. Sliding so she could see both Musa directly across from her, and Bloom in the next alcove across and down, Tecna moved her hands in clear signals learned in their extra classes with Griselda.

'We can take them.'

Bloom Turned and gave the signal to Stella and Flora, who shared it with Aisha, the six girls readied themselves. Tecna waited until the two armour clad guards had finished examining their now empty cell and turned back to the entrance, she signalled Musa and Bloom and slid out of hiding, running as quietly as she could, Musa right beside her.

Together Tecna and Musa drove their heels into the guards' knees, spinning and slamming their elbows into the helmets as the guards went down.

The helmets popped clean from the rest of the armour and the suits fell into heaps with a loud clash. Musa flinched at the noise, the rest of the Winx slowed to a stop, looking at the empty suits.

[Party – Winx Club : Exp – 20]

“Huh,” Stella shrugged and reached down, pulling a bronze key from a leather strap amidst the armour pieces.

[Cell Key – Darkened Dawn Keep]

The girls looked between themselves.

“So, I can't hear any more guards, so we head out?” Musa asked.

“We could, does anyone want to check the other cells for stuff?” Bloom asked.

“Are we likely to find anything other than straw?” Stella asked.

“There might be more blankets?” Flora said with a shrug.

“But is it worth it just for more blankets,” Aisha asked, “we'll probably find better stuff further in the game.”

“True,” Flora allowed, “but we can still use them for carrying thing we find, and also, we might be able to use them against these armour creatures, to muffle the sound they make when they fall apart maybe.”

“That's a good point,” Tecna agreed, “we have no way of knowing how many there are, or what their spawn conditions are, if we can avoid triggering any spawns by noise...”

“Plus this is supposed to have survival game aspects, and apparently those types of games hide loot _everywhere_. So, should we start at the back,” Bloom pointed to the dead end of the hall, “and work our way forwards?” She swept her hand toward the corner the guards had come around.

“Best way not to miss anything,” Aisha agreed, “if we're doing this, should we do three to a cell, or two per cell and two in the hallway with the key just in case?”

“Two per,” Flora and Musa put in their vote at the same time, the others nodded in agreement.

“What about this armour?” Musa nudged a pauldron with her foot.

“Give me a moment,” Tecna knelt down, and began sifting through the pieces, handing them off to Bloom who stacked them in the nearest alcoves. “Well, the armour is armour, but all of the descriptions say 'a shadow of evil still lingers upon the metal,' so, I don't know if it would be worth wearing.”

“Plus we have a lot of bare skin,” Stella added, gesturing to her arms, which were bare beneath the blanket, like everyone else, and the sweep of her collar bones and ankles, “and everyone knows metal on bare skin is a huge no no outside of jewellery.”

“And then there's the noise factor and weight we probably don't need,” Aisha continued the line of logic, “what about the weapons?”

“Two [Basic Spears], low stats, probably pretty good for normal level ones, and no 'lingering evil,' so who wants one?”

“DIBS!” Stella threw her hand into the air with enthusiasm, at the looks she gather she deflated with a frown, “what, it's close enough to the Ring of Solaria's staff form that my stave abilities should translate.”

Aisha shrugged, “I have some experience with the Trident, I can take the other one, and stay in the hall with Stella and the key in case of more guards. Sound good?”

The others agreed and moved back toward the dead end.

In the first few cells the girls found four more blankets, two silver coins, three more of the slim scrap metal sticks, and a sewing needle.

“Yes!” Stella cheered at the needle, “oh, can you girls bring out one of the benches, if this realism thing extends to items, I might be able to pull a few threads from that really ratty looking blanket and use it to sew some of the other blankets into bags, so it'll be easier to carry everything.”

Aisha leaned against a wall and watched Stella work while the others checked the next few cells, Musa brought out a bucket with her next few finds (another metal scrap and a third silver coin) “I figured we could use it to hold everything until Stella finishes with the bags, maybe some pouches.”

“Good thinking,” Tecna agreed, dropping off a few more blankets, “you're really quick at this,” she observed Stella's deft movements.

The Solarian princess shrugged, “I've always known how to sew, to repair my gowns in an emergency at a gala or whatever, but lately I've been messing around with making my own clothes, and magicking things together like that, well, it's easier if you have the basic skills to extrapolate from you know.”

“Right,” Tecna gave Stella's shoulder an understanding squeeze. It had taken time, was still slow going on occasion, but the Winx were gradually getting Stella used to the idea that it was okay for her to have interests and skills that she was good at and passionate about, the blonde having spent several isolated years perfecting a vapid persona after childhood bullies had teased her for her intelligence.

Stella still tended to default to her old 'ha, nothing to see here but some gorgeous scenery' behaviour when someone tried to praise her for her competence or intellect, but she was learning to take the compliments.

“I wonder why we haven't seen any other players,” Flora said as she brought out a few more odds and ends, “I mean, we were supposed to spawn in the same area right? But we were the only ones in the dungeons.”

“Maybe there's other dungeons,” Musa suggested, “and we just got lucky with our spawn?” The girls shared a shrug and went back to their tasks.

By the time they were finished searching the cells, they'd acquired a small mountain of silver coins, a bucket full of scrap metal sticks, a large pile of worn blankets, two rusty knives and a mysterious white key.

“So we clearly can't carry all this, even with the bags Stella put together,” Aisha began, “we'll need to figure out what we're keeping.”

“We should definitely keep the coins,” Flora said, “they're probably worth something in trade.”

“What about these pieces of metal,” Stella held up on of the pieces in question.

“I've been thinking,” Bloom began, taking two of the pieces and moving to the nearest cell door, “and I think,” she knelt down and stuck the two pieces in, wiggling them around. The lock popped open with a click.

“They're lock picks,” Bloom said, standing and turning back to the group.

“Were... were we supposed to pick the lock to our cell?” Musa asked, her head tilting to the side as she squinted at the bucket.

“That does seem logical,” Tecna replied. “We should take several of the lock picks each, divide the coins and take at least one more blanket each.”

The group nodded in agreement, dividing their spoils amongst themselves.

“How are we going to stop these things from jangling?” Bloom asked as she took her allotment of coins and lock picks.

“Here,” Stella grabbed one of the knives and began cutting one of the spare blankets into strips, “wrap them up.”

“Good thinking,” Bloom took two of the strips, one for coins, one for lock picks, and began rolling the metal in the cloth while Stella handed out more strips.

“Alright,” Aisha said once everything was packed, “I think it's about time we got out of here, don't-”

[Limited Time Event:  
Sacrilege of the Witch Part 01  
Objective: Kill the Queen  
Time to complete: 25 minutes]

“What the?” The Winx looked at one another for a moment before Tecna opened the Quest information.

[Withing the Darkened Dawn Keep is one of the Queen's of Evil. She has begun an ancient ritual of magic to steal the strength of the souls she's kidnapped. Track her down and kill her before the ritual can be completed.]

“Looting time is over, let's go stop that witch,” Bloom declared, the rest of the Winx nodded, and the six young women began racing for the exit. As the neared it, six [Basic Armour] materialised. The Winx had been taking Griselda's combat classes for ages, and they had real world experience dealing with enemies, the grinned and went on the offensive.

Stella and Aisha knocked the weapons of the two closest guards aside with their spears, leaving and opening for Bloom and Musa to duck in and behead the first to suits.

Flora and Tecna used two twisted blankets to catch the weapons of the second pair of guards, pulling them off course, Stella and Aisha leap frogged Bloom and Musa, taking off the helmets with a coordinated strike before blocking the weapons of the third and last pair.

With a shared look, Musa and Bloom swooped to pick up the two helmets they'd taking off and hurled them with impressive accuracy at the last pair.

As the final two guards collapsed, the Winx gave a cheer, stopping only to pick up the six fallen weapons before moving on.

Bloom took one of the arming swords, while Musa picked one of the two small axes, Flora accepted the other sword, while Tecna took one of the spears. The remaining axe was wrapped in the gambeson of one of the guards. The last spear was left where it was, since it was to unwieldy to carry as a spare.

The hallway they entered into had dozens of doors identical to the one the exited, and at the end was a larger, thicker looking wooden door, sitting slightly ajar.

Realising that the identical doors likely led to more prisons cells, and that the witch they were seeking wasn't likely to be in them, the group made for the door at the end. Tecna sidled up the to opening and peered out, looking for any guards in the room beyond, with one hand she signed to the others, the room looked clear.

They moved.

They remained cautious as the continued through the room, and the next, and the corridor that followed. As they passed one door, Bloom slowed.

“Hey, is anyone else seeing that?” The others turned, following Bloom's pointed finger to the bottom of the door.

“See what?” Stella asked stepping closer, Bloom made a noise of interested surprise.

“There was a dark fog, like a miasma, seeping out from under the door, but it's gone now.”

“Well,” Musa adjusted her grip on her axe, “we don't have any better leads, let's what that's about.”

The others nodded, and Bloom opened the door with caution, they filed in.

“So the rest of you can't see that?” Bloom checked again, “how the miasma just gets thicker the further in the hall it goes?”

The others shook their heads, and Stella began moving with a “well lets-” before Bloom darted forwards to pull her up short.

“Bloom?”

“Hey, can the rest of you move forwards, one at a time, just to that side table up there,” Bloom indicated the one she meant with her head. Share a confused look, the others complied, once the other four were by the table, Bloom gave Stella a 'wait a sec' gesture and joined them.

“Okay Stell', come here,” but Bloom was watching the fog only she could see as Stella joined them. “Huh, so Stella, I need you to be at the rear, cause you're scaring the creepy fog.”

Stella replied with an 'are you serious?' eyebrow raise and an 'alright then' shrug, moving into position as rear guard as the group began moving again.

Soon they came to a large hall like room, with several doors leading off from it. Bloom didn't need to tell the others for them to guess which room they were after. In the middle of one of the longer walls was a very large carved set of double doors, hinged with thick pieces of bronze.

Before the girls could move to open it, one of the other doors opened, and in came a young woman, who looked slightly older than them, she raced towards them, an axe like Musa's in her hand. She grinned when she saw their weapons.

“I'm a player,” she called before getting in range, “and I have a cerberus on my tail, help a girl out?”

The Winx shared a look and nodded, the young woman made a gesture in the air an a screen popped up in front of the Winx, a 'join party' request, Bloom hit confirm.

“How do we defeat a cerberus? Those are the three headed dogs right?”

“Yeah, but we have spears,” The strange girl, Ephiny her name marker declared, smirked and began outlining the plan. She'd only gotten the first two steps in when the cerberus broke through the door, racing for Ephiny.

The three spear wielders stepped forward, while Ephiny stepped back, turning to Bloom as she did.

“Hey, swap weapons with me for a second,” Bloom handed over her sword in exchange for the other girl's axe, “I'm going to jump it,” she gestured to Musa and Bloom, “aim for the neck joins.”

The cerberus slammed into the three spears as she finished talking, Ephiny spun back to face it, and found Flora half kneeling, with her hands cupped before her. Ephiny ran, using Flora's offered hands to boost her jump, and Bloom's borrowed sword to fend off teeth as she flew.

Flora twisted to roll out of the way as Bloom and Musa rushed in to plant the axe heads as deep as they could in the two places where the three necks met. Stella let out a shriek of outrage as the spear heads cut along the lines of the throat, forced through muscle exposed by the cerberus as its heads bent backwards, seeking its prey, blood splattering the five below.

Ephiny sunk her blade through the creatures back, aiming for the heart. Clear of the mess, Flora steeled herself and slipped in between her friends, planting her own blade through the creatures chest.

The Winx all dodged backwards as the beast stilled and slumped to the ground, Ephiny rolling from its back and across the floor.

[Congratulations:  
Victory: Cerberus – Level 8  
400 XP  
200 Virtue]

“Thanks,” she said as she made her way to them, offering Bloom back her sword, “I'm glad I'm not the only one who made it here in time, I was not looking forward to fending that mutt off until the church arrived.”

“The... church?” Bloom asked.

“Yeah, the limited time quest we all have? We have a further fifteen minutes than the quest says we do, the timer for this is when the Army of the Divine Lord arrives, aka 'the church.'”

“This game is not what I thought it would be,” Aisha said, looking at the cerberus corpse in disgust.

“Yeah no kidding,” Ephiny agreed, “but marketing guy attached to this project is almost as much of an arsehole as the creator. Sorry if you were expecting a more fun game, but this is the dark and gritty magic is evil universe from pseudo-christian nightmares... or psycho-christian in this case.”

“So you seem to know a lot about this game,” Tecna began.

“Because I'm a beta tester,” Ephiny answered the unasked question, “which is why, hacker,” Ephiny gave Tecna a meaningful look, “I know that you'll want to cover your hair, that is not an normal avatar option, and babe, the church will not play nice if they think there's magic involved.”

“I'm _not_ a hacker,” Tecna all but snarled, “we're using an independent rig system, this is my real hair!”

“How... no, actually, I don't want to know, but seriously, cover your hair for your own safety.”

Stella was already tearing another blanket into strips, weaving it around Tecna's head in a secure wrap.

“There, now it's fine,” the blonde said defensively, giving Ephiny a small glare.

“Nice,” Ephiny replied, complimenting the cover up, “now, who's ready to go fight a witch?”

“Have you got a plan, Beta Tester?” Aisha asked, tapping her spear lightly on the ground.

Ephiny took a cleansing breath, there she'd gone again, alienating people. This was why she played solo.

“The witch is pretty basic, she'll throw some fire balls, don't get hit by those, she also takes swipes with some wicked long nails. Those are poison, also to be avoided. She has regenerative abilities, like most bosses, so it's going to take a lot of hits when and where we can. Once her health is low enough, she'll start using her hair as a weapon, it's like something out of bad tentacle porn, swear to god, but at that point she'll be low enough of magic, that this,” Ephiny reached into the sling she wore across her chest like a bandoleer and withdrew something crystal and pulsing, “will no longer be protected by magic, and it can be destroyed.”

“What the fuck is that?” Musa asked, horrified, she had a guess but hoped she was wrong.

“The witch's heart,” Ephiny replied with a grimace, “it's why the cerberus was so dead set on hunting me, it protected the heart.”

“So how does the church propose to kill the witch?” Aisha cut back in.

“With an [Angel's Blade],” Ephiny scoffed, tucking the heart back into her sling, “there is a _lot_ of psuedo-Christian bullshit in this game, and I say this as someone who was raised in a Christian household: so much hyper-zealot Christian extremist misogynistic bullshit. Playing as a female avatar puts you at a disadvantage with all 'good' figures of authority, but I don't enjoy the dysphoria of playing as a man.”

“I'm sorry girls,” Bloom turned to her friends, “this... isn't what I wanted, we can log out if you want, I just wanted us to play something fun that worked with our skill sets.”

“Let's...” Flora looked at her friends, “let's at least take care of this witch first, since we're already here.”

The other five looked at each other, trying to gauge how they were all feeling, and slowly, the nodded in agreement.

“Alright,” Bloom said, “Tecna, Stella, Aisha, if you can use your spears to block any shots from the witch's nails, Flora, Musa and I can take shots at the witch.”

“I'll see what I can do about the talismans in the room,” Ephiny said, “and take shots when I can.”

“Talismans?”

“Evil magic that gives the witch strength, I smash 'em, she'll get weaker. Did I not mention them already?”

“No, anything else you didn't mention?”

“Not that I can think of,” Ephiny shrugged, “but we have just under seven minutes before the church shows up, and I'd rather not lose the XP to those guys.”

“Alright, let's go Winx.”

“Winx?” Ephiny raised an eyebrow as she followed the other girls to the door.

“The Winx Club,” Tecna explained, “it's what we call our group.”

“Why?”

“It was supposed to be 'Wings', but shenanigans happened, and 'Winx' is what went onto our school form.”

“Oh, you girls are a school club?” Ephiny checked the group over with a new perspective.

“Fairy defenders of the universe!” Stella said with a smug grin.

“ _FaIRieS,_ ” a voice came from within the room, followed by a deep chuckle, “FA _irIes do nOt_ _ **deFEnd**_ **.** ”

“Another thing not to share with the church,” Ephiny said, fixing her grip on her axe.

The room they had entered was dark and gloomy, but Bloom saw the miasma that permeated the air lift as the group walked further in. In the centre was a woman, her body was thin, more like leather stretched over a skeleton than and actual body, her skin was so white it seemed blue, even in the yellow light of the flames. Her hair hung down like greasy black spider silk, wrapping her like a cloak and coiling around the candles half melted to the floor in a circle around her.

“ _The ChuRCh!_ ” The witch scoffed, “ _they HAve no pOwEr heRE. As For YoU, I have MorE than EnoUGh slaVES to fEEd from, I have NO NeeD for_ _ **YOU**_ _!_ ”

The witch summoned flames to her hands and flung them at the group, who scattered into separate directions.

The Winx broke into pairs and began circling the witch, Ephiny on the other hand, used the back of her axe to smash a small figurine, which caused the witch to flinch and snarl. Aisha darted in first, batting away a nail swipe, Musa ducked in under the spear and arms and landed a swipe of her own with her axe. The duo spun out of the way before the witch could respond.

Stella and Bloom went next, then Tecna and Flora.

As Aisha and Musa went in for another strike, they had to dodge backwards, the witch anticipating their attack and casting a wall of flame around herself.

The next minute was spent dodging fireballs that flung outwards from the flame. As the wall began to die down, Bloom whistled and signed a new attack strategy to her friends. Stella and Aisha kept their spears, everyone else – bar Ephiny – dropped their weapons.

The witch screeched as the six began dodging around her, unable to see the plan until it was too late.

Flora and Bloom came from behind, sliding across the floor with a rolled blanket taut between them. Musa and Tecna came from the front, Tecna flinging one end of another rolled blanket to Musa at the last second; they leapt, up and over the witch's arms, catching her throat with the blanket turned rope.

As the quartet pulled in different directions, Stella and Aisha slid their spears between the witch's arms and her body, forcing them back. Flora pulled out a second rolled blanket from her pack and tied the witches hands as best she could.

Musa and Tecna turned, adding more downwards force to the witch's neck as the other four pulled back, dragging the witch to the floor. Aisha and Stella leapt back towards the witch, using the momentum of the fall to add extra force as they thrust their spears through her chest, pinning her to the floor.

In the next instant, Bloom and Flora were there, adding the blades of their swords to the body.

The entire group jumped back and away as the witch's hair began to writhe like a billion silk strand snakes.

“By the Grace of God,” Ephiny's voice rang out, the Winx turned in time to see her bring the back of her axe's head down on the crystal heart, shattering it to a hundred pieces.

The witch screamed, gargled through the blood in her lungs, and went up in flames just as the door burst open again and a large number of soldiers came pouring in.

[Limited Time Event:  
Sacrilege of the Witch Part 01  
Objective: Kill the Queen – Complete  
Time to complete: 25 minutes – Complete  
Bonus Objectives:  
Destroy the Witch's Heart – Complete]

[Congratulations:  
Victory: Queen of Darkness – Level 13  
800 XP  
700 Virtue  
Bounty Reward Available – Witch of the Darkened Dawn Keep]

[Level Up!  
Level Up is now available]

A broad shouldered man in a suit of armour stepped forward, eyeing the scene before him.

“You girls killed the witch?” His eyebrow was raised, and he looked disbelieving.

“We did,” Ephiny proclaimed, standing proudly.

“Impressive,” the man allowed, “especially since you're all...”

“We're all what?” Stella stepped forward, glare settling over her face.

“...so... young,” the man finished, uncomfortably; the group could tell that hadn't been his original description, but they let it slide. “Please, my ladies, allow us to escort you to safety.”

The Winx shared a look, then looked to Ephiny, who nodded and gestured to the army, indicating it was alright to go with them. The Winx shared another look, and retrieved their weapons. Those that had been impaled in the witch when she went up in flames dissolved at the first touch. The girls grimaced, and Aisha retrieved the spare axe they'd brought.

Tecna handed her spear over to Stella, who was better with the pole-arm than she was, and Musa kept her own axe. Considering the group for a moment, Ephiny reached into her sling and pulled out a long knife wrapped in a piece of blanket, handing it to Bloom with a shrug.

“You could use it more than I do.”

“Thanks,” Bloom said as she accepted it.

The Army ushered the girls outside, to a makeshift camp by the edge of a forest of tall, tall trees while the soldiers went through the keep, looking for other prisoners. The seven young women were left alone in a food tent with a plate and drink each, guarded only by the curious cooks.

“So,” Ephiny sad between mouthfuls of watery porridge, “you girls taking off after all?”

“I think so,” Bloom replied, “this is really not what we signed on for, we were expecting...”

“Disney version dark?” Ephiny guessed.

Bloom nodded, “yeah, this is... this is R-rated stuff.”

“Yeah, it can get pretty intense, it's not for everybody, I don't really like the game either, but as a beta, I wanted to see how far the game had come since I last played it.” Ephiny pushed some of her short blonde curls from her face. “But hey, if you're taking off, can I have your stuff? Those bags look great, where'd you even find those?”

“I made them,” Stella beamed, “We found an old needle in one of the cells in our corridor, and I cannibalised several blankets.”

“That's insane, and genius,” Ephiny said, impressed, “I knew you could translate real world skills, thanks to the 'hyper reality' thing this game touts, but I didn't realise you could do _that_.”

The first of the other players were brought into the tent, and thankfully for the girls, seated at a different table.

“Where was everyone?” Flora asked, looking over at them.

“Probably stuck in the cells,” Ephiny shrugged, “The lock picks in the tutorial cells are pretty indestructible, but they only give you one set, so if you break them in your escape attempt, you're stuck.” Ephiny looked at the Winx, who suddenly looked very suspicious. “What?”

“We, uh, found and alternative exit,” Tecna admitted. “We used the bucket and the bench to leaver the door off the hinges.”

“Pirates of the Caribbean style, nice,” Ephiny gave a thumbs up, “I'd heard that was possible, but you need at least two players to lift the bench. So what happened?”

“The sound attracted two guards and we took them out,” Aisha said, “why?”

“Did they drop anything?”

“Armour, spears and the cell key,” Musa answered.

“So it _is_ possible to check all the cells,” Ephiny fiddled with her spoon as she considered things. “What did you find?”

“Mostly worn blankets, lock picks, some silver coins,” Musa paused as Ephiny's eyebrows shot up, “some buckets, benches, dirty straw, the needle and a rusty knife that'll break if we use it for anything tougher then the blankets.

“Silver coins are super valuable,” Ephiny explained, “but you won't need them until later in the game, I had no idea there was any in the cells.

“Well,” Bloom began, “you get all our stuff, we still have the key, you could go back in... can't you?”

“Yeah, I can, thanks.” Ephiny shook her head in disbelief, “I have got to tell Bo' about this.”

“Bo'?”

“A... friend of mine, and a fellow beta, her full handle is 'Boudicea',” Ephiny made a symbol in the air and pulled up her mail screen.

“How...” The Winx looked confused.

“Huh?” Ephiny looked up and saw their focus on her screen. “Oh, I quick keyed basically all of my screens. I'd show you how, but you're leaving so...” she shrugged and went back to her message.

The Winx shared a shrug as well, they had decided to leave, the level of violence was too much, even for their training, this game had been intended as a relaxing group thing, not another tooth-and-nail fight for survival.

The six fairies made sure all of their loot was left on the table with Ephiny, and opened their menus, trailing down to the log out button.

Or rather: where the log out button should have been.

“Hey Ephiny?”

“Yeah Bloom?”

“Just, to double check, how do we find the log out button?”

Ephiny looked up again, seeing the girls' menus, she blanched, opening her own and following the three step path to the log out button.

Hers was missing as well. Frowning, she turned to the recent arrivals.

“OI! You mob! Can you lot find your log out buttons real quick?” The group looked over, scowling, and reluctantly opened their menus. And began freaking out. Ephiny swore and added an addendum to her message to Bo', sending it off before opening a new message page, this one addressed to the Game Mods.

“It's probably just an opening day glitch,” Ephiny said, “one of the worst possible glitches,” she shook her head.

“Sorry girls,” Bloom said with a grimace, “I guess we'll be here a little longer.”

“It's alright Bloom,” Flora said, though Bloom could tell her friend was putting on a brave face, “we've defeated the witch, so we probably won't have to fight anything else before we leave.”

“She's right,” Ephiny spoke up, “unless they've changed _that_ from the beta, all the enemies in the keep die when the witch does, and the army will protect us on the way to the city.”

“Well, if we're sticking around a little longer,” Aisha said, “should we help Ephiny clean out the cells?”

The rest of the girls shrugged and nodded, finished their food and stood, shouldering their packs and cloaks once again. As they made their way back to the keep, Stella eyed her cloak.

“You know, I might be able to make these more coat like while you search.”

“Really?” Tecna asked, “that might be a good idea; Ephiny, how soon can we get better clothing?”

“Well, the Army is supposed to take the players to the city, which, judging by how cold it is, is probably Gerfnidahm, which, trust me, is not a real word, has no real world meaning, but sounds vaguely German and mysterious, like many of the major cities in this world.

“After that, we're taken to the local Church, where we're given a second set of clothes, which do include light jackets, and we're given option for jobs or allowed to go off on our own. So, another few hours, but those few hours are trekking through cold forests, so, I'd say 'yes please' to a jacket.”

“Alright Stella,” Musa said, “I guess you're on Jacket Duty.”

At the entrance to the keep, the seven young women were stopped by a guard.

“I was wearing a necklace when I was taken,” Ephiny all but sobbed, “it was a gift from my grandmother before she... went away, it's a small pendant with the sigil of Archangel Micheal on it, if I could just check my prison cell, just to see if it fell off there? Please?”

The guard looked uncomfortable with the idea of crying women, so he relented and let them pass.

“Nice job,” Aisha aid with approval.

“Acting,” Ephiny replied with a smirk, “it has its uses.”

The group found their way down to the hallway of prison corridors, where more guards waited, Ephiny gave them the same sob story about her angel pendant. The guards let the group through, telling them to keep an eye out for any magic traps, and to scream if they needed help.

Once unsupervised in the corridor, the group began their looting.

From the first cell, they brought out a bench for Stella to use as a crafting desk, along with a bucket for fabric scraps. The second cell they brought a bucket for lock picks, and the third bucket for the coins.

Stella worked with single minded focus as the three teams of two went cell to cell, bringing her blankets as they went. She knew the sizes of the other Winx as well as she knew her own measurements, so she was able to put the first six jackets together quickly, even with the double layering she had to do.

She kept the design simple, even with the hood, sleeves and front flaps. Stella was working on the sixth jacket when the others finished their searching.

“Wow,” Ephiny whispered, “were we that slow or...”

“She's just that fast,” Bloom whispered back with smug pride in her voice, “Stella wants to be a fashion designer some day.”

“Nice,” Ephiny said as Stella straightened from her project.

“And six!” she blinked in surprise as she noticed the others watching her, “oh good, Ephiny, I need your measurements.”

Ephiny stepped up and let Stella take her measurements with a thin cord of knotted blanket.

“You do good work,” she said as the seamstress sat back down.

Stella scoffed, “this was a quick job, they should keep us warm, but don't tug too hard on the seams or they'll pop. If I had more time I could make them better, but I'm working with what I've got.”

“Fair enough,” Ephiny nodded, and turned to help the other five sort through their spoils.

“So Ephiny,” Flora asked as they worked, “how come you were alone?”

“In my cell?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it has to do with the game's spawn system. I have contacts among the Game Developers, so I know a little extra. The plan for this game is to launch Servers one by one, and have new player days set on certain dates so everyone can get the tutorial keep,” Ephiny indicated to the walls around them.

“Of course people who don't do their first log in on those days are supposed to spawn in the medical wing of the Church. Now, the servers are supposed to be able to handle ten thousand player a piece, though there's some debate on whether or not they could actually hold more, but to avoid flooding one area, and making more narrative sense, the players are broken into spawn group, which range anywhere from 50 to 200, spread out across various 'counties' and what not all over the land.

“Amongst these spawn groups, players are either randomly grouped, or they use group spawn keys, which I'm assuming you girls did, to end up together?” The group nodded, “if only one player uses a unique spawn key, they end up alone at their spawn point... and I just realised I overshared _and_ info dumped you, I am _so_ sorry.”

“It's fine,” Tecna said with a snort, “you've got nothing on me and technology when _I_ get going, but while we have this influx of information; what did you mean 'another thing not to tell the church'? Back when we were entering the witches lair.”

Ephiny frowned, trying to recall the conversation. “OH! That, fairies are evil in this game, all magic, actually. Like I said: pseudo-christian bullshit. All magic is evil, the church is good. And if you use any kind of magic, you get an evil alignment rating, that _cannot_ be removed, at least, there was no way in the beta. The army of the church is not going to be impressed with players who call themselves fairies, you'll be labelled heretics and put to death, and because the creator of the game is batshit, if you are killed by the 'holy order of the church,' your character suffers perma-death, no respawn, do not pass go, start over from scratch.”

“All magic?” Bloom looked sickened by the thought.

“ _All_ magic,” Ephiny confirmed, “there are fairy godmothers in the game, creatures which claim to be good, and they do help, but the price is really steep.”

“And what is the price?” Aisha asked, worried.

“Your soul, basically.” Ephiny shrugged with false nonchalance, then got serious, “no, but for real, I made the mistake of doing business with one in one of my alternates, and when the godmother needed a favour, I was basically watching a let's play while the godmother piloted my avatar around. It was the worst feeling.” Ephiny shuddered, “I regret my decision to see what's changed since the beta.”

“This game is...” Aisha couldn't find the words.

“How the hell did this game make it to public launch?!” Bloom asked, appalled.

Ephiny shrugged, “cults with deep pockets? Though to be fair, one of the games that was launched was a pure survival game, and I know one of the four China releases was a survival horror that called in some of the best minds in the genre. The different worlds appeal to different people, some folks be crazy.”

“The creator be crazy,” Stella remarked as she cut the last loose thread from Ephiny's new jacket. The seven young women started snorting and giggling, and when the guards came to get them two minutes later, they were in full blown hysterics.

“Uh...” the pair of soldiers looked at one another, silently trying will the other to take charge of the crazed women. The group settled down quickly, aware the hilarity of Stella's words was mostly post battle hysterics.

“Sorry,” Ephiny said, “I couldn't find my necklace, so the others were trying to make me feel better.”

The soldiers, programmed to be uncomfortable with both girls and emotions, nodded.

“That's unfortunate, but it is time to go, all of the other prisoners have been rescued, we can't delay any longer, or we won't make it back to the city before nightfall.”

The seven young women made noises of agreement and stood, letting Stella hand out their new jackets, and the backpack she'd stitched together for Ephiny.

“Where'd you get those?” asked the younger of the two soldiers.

“I made them,” Stella replied with a twirl to show off her work, before shouldering her bag.

“They look good,” the soldier said in earnest, “my good-sister is a seamstress too, if you're looking for work, I'm sure she could use the help.”

“Good-sister?” Musa whispered to Ephiny.

“In-law,” Ephiny whispered back, just loud enough for the Winx to hear.

The Winx grabbed what was left of the pile of blankets before they headed out - “to help keep the other former prisoners warm” - making the shortest detour to the Winx's corridor to pick up the pile they'd left behind previously.

They cleared the keep and made it back to camp just as the army's leader – Mikail, the man from the witch's room – was about to send scouts to look for the small group.

“What took you all so long,” his face was thunderous with disapproval.

“Sorry sir,” Joshua, the guard with the sister-in-law replied, “we stopped to grab some blankets for the folks kidnapped by the witch, it's a bit of a cold walk, and we didn't bring enough blankets.”

Mikail looked past Joshua to the seven young woman, recognising the witch slayers, he sighed.

“Alright, but you'll have to hand them out as we walk, we're already cutting it close as it is.”

“Yes sir,” Joshua and his companion, Jacob, headed along the waiting lines of shivering players, handing out blankets. While the soldiers who'd come to the keep were wearing several layers, and protected from the cold air, the players weren't so lucky, wearing only thin trousers and sleeveless tops. Even their simple shoes did little to stop the cold.

“It's not enough,” Tecna said with a frown. Mikail raised his eyebrows at her. “We have 32 blankets to hand out, I can see almost a dozen people with blankets already, that leaves roughly 60 people with out.”

“That's not going to be good,” an older soldier said, coming up beside Mikail, “there's a storm coming in, it's going to get bloody cold in half an hour, we'll be walking through rain for at least and as long before we hit the city.”

“Should we just camp here for the night?” Flora asked, but Mikail sneered.

“No, we'll not sleep in this hellish place, even with the witch gone, there'll be evils afoot. We'll just have to walk through the rain.”

“If you leave us a horse,” Tecna started, “we can go back inside for more blankets, and catch up once we have enough, a small group can move faster than an army, and we can at least do something about the cold.”

Mikail looked at them consideringly.

[The Chill Winds  
Objective: secure enough blankets and get them to the evacuees before the Chill Winds hit  
Time limit: 35 minutes]

“Alright,” Mikail said, calling several guards over with a wave of his arm, “Brayden, leave the women two horses for carrying, the rest of you, distribute these blankets as we go, we're moving out.”

The Winx and Ephiny handed over the Blankets and headed back into the keep, racing through the halls to the cells, this time they cleared the cells individually and with less care, filling a bucket with coins, but focusing on the blankets. Stella once again remained in the hall, though this time it was to package the blankets for transport, tying them into bundles.

“So this quest,” Stella began as they moved into the fourth corridor.

“It's an adlib,” Ephiny answered before the question could be asked. “The system monitors all players at all times, and one of the AIs creates quests based on what a player is doing, if it feels like it meets quest guidelines, time limit, favours, experiments, things like that.”

“Cool, infinite quests,” Aisha said.

“That's the idea,” Ephiny replied.

The group left the keep for the third time with fifteen minutes on the clock, two horses waited for them, tied to a wooden fence.

“Who's riding,” Ephiny asked, as she helped secure the blankets to one of the horses. The Winx shared a secretive look, which didn't go unnoticed. “What?”

“What's your speed?” Bloom asked, as the girls loaded one of the horses with too many blanket bundles to allow for a rider. Ephiny pulled up her stats for Bloom to see. “Do you know how to ride?”

“Yeeesss,” Ephiny looked at the group with suspicion, “whyyyy?”

“We're all faster than you, if you take the horses and ride ahead, we can deliver more blankets quicker, and the rest of us can follow on foot.”

“How can you be _faster_ , the speed and strength of a player is determined by levels and...” Ephiny trailed off, a thought occurring to her, “huh, I thought the witch was too easy for a level 13, but I figured it was a combination of broken talismans and the six of you actually knowing how to fight. But that's not it, is it?”

“We aren't hackers,” Tecna said with steel in her voice, “the rigs we're using, it transferred additional data by accident, Cardinal already bitch-faced us for it but has let the issue slide.”

“'A secret program, a hidden directive,'” Musa recalled.

“What?” Ephiny turned to Musa.

The fairy shook her head, “I'll explain later, for now, we're running out of time on this quest, you should get going, we'll be right behind you.”

With a huff, Ephiny mounted one of the horses, checking the lead reign for the second horse, and took off.

“I don't think the log off button being missing is a glitch,” Musa said to her friends.

“So, what,” Tecna asked, “you think Cardinal is allowing us to 'cheat' because...”

“We're already _being_ cheated,” Musa finished, “' a secret program, a hidden directive.'”

“Fuck,” Aisha spat.

“Fuck,” Bloom agreed, guilt in her voice.

“We can talk about this later, we need to catch up with Ephiny,” Flora interrupted.

“Eight minutes,” Stella checked the clock. The Winx took off running, the bundles they couldn't fit on the horses secure in their backpacks. They covered ground quickly, catching up with two minutes to spare; Tecna hadn't been kidding when she'd said a small group could move faster than an army.

With two seconds left, the last blanket was handed out, and a howling wind blew through the forest around them. A few players shrieked as the wind seemed to cut them to the bone with cold, and everyone pulled their blankets tighter around themselves, thankful for the added protection, scant though it was.

[The Chill Winds  
Objective: secure enough blankets and get them to the evacuees before the Chill Winds hit – Complete  
Time limit: 35 minutes – Complete]

[Congratulations:  
200 XP  
100 Virtue]

The Winx found their way to Ephiny, matching her pace as the army and players kept moving.

“So I've been meaning to ask,” Bloom began, “I know 'ex pee' is experience points, but what the heck are these 'virtue' points for?”

“You'll notice” Ephiny said as she pulled up her own character sheet, “that the XP used to level up hasn't induced a level up yet,” and indeed, Ephiny had enough XP to level up a dozen times over, but was still level 1. “The Virtue are used to pay for level up, we need to go to the Church, there'll be a statue there, or it might be something else. The idea behind it is that you are 'strengthened by God's light,' and you can only do that if you are virtuous enough. You can also use them to by a Grace, if you have enough. Graces are unique abilities and permanent buffs, but they cost, like, a trillion Virtue.”

“That's insane,” Stella told her, wide eyed, “like, who would design a system that way?”

“A crazy person,” Ephiny mouthed silently, before being distracted by a mail alert. “Oh, hey, Bo's finally getting back to me.”

A minute later:

“The fudge, crackle and pop?”

“Excuse you?” Musa asked, amused and confused by the words.

“'What the fuck', but more fun to say,” Ephiny explained, “Bo says no one she's spoke with can find the log out button, and the messages to the GMs don't seem to be going through. Or they're being ignored. There should have been a system wide notice by now.”

“Blocked,” Tecna said, looking at Musa, who nodded in agreement.

“Okay, you girls were going to explain about some things earlier, so spill.”

Tecna sighed and began her explanation, “I'm from a place called Zenith, we're very technologically advanced there, so advanced, the NerveGear, is considered an antique. I managed to hook up some Virtual Diving Rigs with the game, but because of the way the VDRs work, when we used them to create our avatars, there was extra data that tried to translate itself into a compatible format.

“We get how it looks, trust me, but between logging in, and actually spawning, we met with a young woman in red-”

“Cardinal red to be precise,” Stella added in, and Tecna nodded in agreement.

“-and she told us she was aware of anomalies in our data, but we could keep them, because there was something strange in the Cardinal Operating system.”

“We think the missing log out button might be a side effect of whatever the hidden program directive is,” Musa explained, looking around them for eaves droppers.

“Trapping players in this game?” Ephiny hypothesised, “the creator is looney toons, but I didn't think- no wait, you said the program was in Cardinal itself?” The Winx nodded, “Cardinal was created by Akihiko Kaiaba, he has nothing to do with this game, just the engine it's run on.”

“So the people in charge of this world...” Musa trailed off.

“May not even know we're locked in,” Tecna finished for her in a horrified voice.

“But to what end?” Aisha asked, not expecting an answer.

“Oh **fuck** ,” Ephiny stopped, hands over her mouth and looking like she needed to puke.

“Ephiny?”

“Oh God, _please_ let me be wrong, please don't let _anyone_ be that crazy.”

“ _Ephiny!_ ” The Winx looked at their new companion in fear, wondering what could possibly be that bad.

“I don't, I can't... the NerveGear used microwaves to read the brain's electronic impulses.”

“Oh my-” Tecna looked like she wanted to puke, bending at the waist and trying to breathe as the implications hit her. “Akihiko Kaiaba is _insane_!!”

“I could be wrong, oh God let me be wrong.”

“Please tell me you aren't saying what I think you're saying,” Bloom begged, horror mounting. “If this is inherent in Cardinal, then it affects _every_ game, that's over two million people!”

“Girls!” Flora cut in, “we don't know if this is true, we can't say for certain the missing log in button _isn't_ a glitch, we need to calm down and look at this rationally.”

“Flora's right,” Stella agreed, though the blonde was shivering. “We can't let ourselves fall to despair, especially if were wrong. Until we have confirmation, we should act like it's just an opening day bug. Agreed?”

The others agreed, but they all knew the idea, now said, was lurking in the backs of their minds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes I had for this series.
> 
>   
> “Cheats”:
> 
> There is a way to get the normal inventory system up and running, but it requires a hidden quest at the Church.
> 
> Translated Buffs for Winx  
> Bloom – Fire Soul (+80% Fire Starting Skill (survival); +80% Fire/burn Resistance; +80% Detect Intent)  
> Tecna – Analytical Accuracy (+80% Aiming accuracy; +80% Analysis/Observe Skill Set; +80% Crafting Skill Set)  
> Flora – Heart of the Forest (+80% Plant Skill Trees (farming, harvesting, potion making, healing); +80% Poison Resistance)  
> Stella – Luminous Being (+80% Vision Abilities; +80% Resistance to Blind; +80% Holy Aura (automatically banishes evil miasmas and such))  
> Musa – Aria of the Four Winds (+80% Bardic abilities (Hearing, busking provides more coins, songs/speeches boost morale/dispel miasmas of despair etc./ Resistance to Vocal Enchantments)); +80% Wind Resistance (wind chill, pushing effects etc.); +80% Language Adaption (how quickly languages will translate for player))  
> Aisha – Born of the Tides (+80 Water Purification Skill (survival); +80% Water Skill Set (Swimming, breath measure, depth, fishing.); +80 Rain Resistance (effects from long term rain exposure)
> 
> Weapons:  
> Bloom – Long Sword (no shield?? DPS?)  
> Stella – Stave (possibly a glaive or halberd? Shield/Tank?)  
> Tecna – Long Bow (her skills make her suited for ranged combat and battle field analysis. Range/Support?)  
> Flora – Shield (large) and throwing knives (provides support with Tecna, and is group's primary healer/medic. Range/Support?)  
> Aisha – dual wield long knives (Kukris* or Gunong/Punyal or Corvo??? combine with kickboxing??? DPS?)  
> Musa – Wind-and-Fire Wheels (like chakrams, but spikier and not for throwing, but Musa totally can. Used with the scary version of tai chi. Shield/Tank?)
> 
> Takes place post season three – ignore the movie continuity and season four onward (no Roxy, Selina etc.)(It's not that I don't like Roxy, I do, I just wanted the Six Enchantix Fairies, the epitome of Good Fairies, to suffer in a world where there's no such thing as good magic, and they don't have their powers.)


	5. Winx Survival - SAO Rescripted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Foul and OFFENSIVE language - it is censored, but it's homophobic and gendered slurs said by a dude-bro.
> 
> Winx Club Canon Divergence (post season 3) | Sword Art Online*
> 
> After defeating Valtor, the Winx Club were called to protect the Magical Dimension at large and found themselves often separated from one another. Determined to Spend some time together doing something fun, Bloom invites the Winx to vacation with her on Earth for a week or two.  
> To help the girls 'get away from it all' Vanessa and Mike get their hands on a copy of a new Virtual Reality game that's about to be released.  
> Tecna brings some Zenith tech to Earth so they can all play together, but there's something sinister afoot, something that will affect Every Game launching on the new NerveGear operating System Cardinal.
> 
> *This takes place in a crossover with Sword Art Online, at the same time as the first arc of SAO, but does not take place in Aincrad, the Winx are on a separate server playing a separate game. SAO is just the background plot device.
> 
> Warning: Foul Language, Swearing, depictions of violence against video game villains, hints of psychological horror
> 
> Abandoned Fic Ideas / Draft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the alternate version of chapter four

Vanessa watched the group of six teenage girls in her living room. The room, normally decently spacious, was currently filled to capacity with strange, magical, alien technology.

In the limited floor space still available, her daughter Bloom was helping her friend Stella to secure her hair in a pair of braids. Bloom cupped her hands over Stella's bound hair to check... something, Vanessa assumed it had to do with the technological interface Tecna had tried to explain to her earlier.

“Hey Vanessa,” Aisha said, stepping out of the clutter, “were we being too loud?”

Vanessa smiled reassuringly and shook her head, “no dear, I just came down to say good night, and to wish you all good luck and fun. Mike and I weren't sure if this game was to your tastes, so I hope it's not too bad.”

Flora joined them by the door, “I'm sure it'll be fine Vanessa, besides, even if it's not quite our thing, it'll be a nice break from our duties as Guardian Fairies.”

“That's true,” Aisha agreed, gloom sweeping over her, “ever since we defeated Valtor, we've all been run off our feet, going here and there, getting called to separate problems that don't even need our 'expertise' to begin with.”

“The down side of being famous bad-asses,” Musa said from further in the room, her words drawing the attention of the other three to the conversation. “Still, it'll be nice to not have anyone relying on us for real, and more importantly, to be able to hang out together again.”

The girls made noises of agreement, which were interrupted by a quiet alarm.

“Last chance for toilet breaks,” Tecna informed the group, stepping aside as Stella raced from the room, the rest of the girls following close behind.

While the others headed for the bathroom, Bloom stopped beside her mother, sweeping the older woman into a tight embrace.

“Thanks for this,” Bloom said softly, “we've really needed a chance to just have fun together again.”

“You're welcome sweetie,” Vanessa replied, “I just hope it _is_ fun.”

Pulling back, Bloom grinned, “don't worry mum, we'll find a way to _make_ it fun.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

* * *

California – November 5th 9:00pm – Global Launch of **Cardinal** operated servers

* * *

[Virtual Diving Rig **operational**

Organic to Cybernetic Synchronisation in progress...

Virtual Avatar – scan user and use physical data to create Avatar? [ **Yes** /No]

Scanning...

Processing...

Compiling...

Compatibility Augmentation in progress...

Compatibility Augmentation **Complete**

 **Launching** program: _Divine Kingdom_ ]

* * *

Something almost sapient lingers; crafted by the hands of men, built for the purposes of monitoring the world itself and the players who come to explore.

Touched by the faintest breath of magic, it Awakens.

* * *

The Winx came into being in a dank, dimly lit cell. Three walls of damp stone, to match the ceiling and straw covered floor, and a third wall of metal bars.

“Why are we in prison?” Stella asked, looking around with a distinct expression of distaste on her face, “did we load it wrong?”

“I... don't know,” Bloom admitted, mentally going through what she knew about the game.

“Well,” Aisha said, “let's get out of here.”

“Do we have anything to pick the lock with?” Musa asked, examining the lock on the door with her hands, probing for the keyhole on the far side.

Flora shook her head, even as the others looked around, “no, but we have a bench and a bucket, and a Tecna, so we might be able to recreate that scene from the pirate movie.”

Tecna looked the door and bench over, considering.

“It should work,” she allowed, “if we get the angles and weights right.”

“Great,” Stella piped up, “let's do it, so we can get out of this dump, and into better outfits.” She plucked at the simple shift she was wearing, and the others tried to decide if she was more upset about being in the cell, or being in such unflattering clothing.

“Alright,” Tecna agreed, directing the others to set up the levering system, “and be careful, these shoes aren't going to do much if you drop anything on your foot.”

Moments later, everything, and everyone, was in position.

“This will probably be loud,” Tecna warned, before giving a five count and pushing down on the bench with Bloom, Aisha put one foot against a horizontal bar and added some pull to the door, swinging it free on the hinged side.

Tecna had been right, the metal made a jarring, ear assaulting screech as it moved.

“Argh,” Musa pressed the heels of her palms over her ears, “that was more than loud.”

“Are you okay,” Flora placed a hand on Musa's lower back.

“Yeah, my hearing's just really good, so that was way louder for me I think. I'll be fine in a moment.” She frowned, “Does anyone else hear clanking sounds?”

She got five affirmatives, Tecna stuck her head out into the hallway.

“I think there's guards coming, we should move, this is a bad place to fight bad guys.”

The Winx slipped out through the unhinged door.

“Away or towards?” Stella asked, eyeing the two possible directions. The corridor spread out into both directions, a few alcoves with flickering torches lined the walls between the cells, but only extended a few more cells down on either side of the one they'd just escaped.

“Well,” Bloom began, “this should be a 'level one' scenario, but at the same time, if it's a story thing....”

“It might have been programmed to be unwinnable regardless of stats,” Tecna finished.

“So we evade and hide,” Aisha confirmed, moving away from the clanking, “and speaking of stats, we should probably check ours.”

“Right,” the six girls made their way down the corridor.

“The torch alcoves,” Tecna said before they could go too far, “split up.”

The girls pressed themselves into the small alcoves in the walls, taking care not to create noticeable shadows in the torchlight. Tecna moved so she could just see around the edge of her alcove, and the guards finally came into view.

[Basic Armour Lvl 02]

Information spilled across her vision. Sliding so she could see both Musa - directly across from her - and Bloom - in the next alcove across and down - Tecna moved her hands in clear signals learned in their extra classes with Griselda.

'We can take them.'

Bloom turned and gave the signal to Stella and Flora, who shared it with Aisha, the six girls readied themselves. Tecna waited until the two armour clad guards had finished examining their now empty cell and turned back to the entrance, she signalled Musa and Bloom and slid out of hiding, running as quietly as she could, Musa right beside her.

Together Tecna and Musa drove their heels into their chosen guards' knees, spinning and slamming their elbows into the helmets as the guards went down.

The helmets popped clean from the rest of the armour, and the suits fell into heaps with a loud clash. Musa flinched at the noise, the rest of the Winx slowed to a stop, looking at the empty suits.

[Exp –> 20]

“Huh,” Stella shrugged and reached down, pulling a bronze key from a leather strap amidst the armour pieces.

[Cell Key – Darkened Dawn Keep]

The girls looked between themselves.

“So, I can't hear any more guards, do we head out?” Musa asked.

“No,” Bloom said, “first, we need to check our stats, familiarise ourselves with the menus, and figure out how to form a party.”

“If I remember correctly,” Tecna spoke, “opening the menu should be as simple as:” she swiped her hand through the air, and series of options appeared.

Copying her, the rest of the Winx opened their menus, sorting through their various tabs.

“Oh,” Bloom said, “I found the 'make party' option. And it says we're already a party?”

“Huh,” Stella looked over Bloom's shoulder before finding the page via her own menu, “she's right.”

Tecna double checked the page, her frown of confusion melting into understanding quickly, “that might be a side effect of the Virtual Diving Rigs, Zenith technology is superior to Earth tech, but it still has to make adjustments to interface properly.” She ran her fingers through her hair, giving it a shake up to draw attention to it. Doing a double take, the Winx finally realised something they hadn't before. Disguised by the poor lighting of the cells, they hadn't noticed Tecna's hair was not her normal shades, but rather, a blackish-brown.

“Is that also why we can move like we normally do?” Flora asked, head tilting to the side curiously, “it's just, I was expecting to feel... less capable, based on what I understood of this whole, 'virtual reality' thing.”

“Not to mention our stats,” Musa added, eyeing the suspiciously high numbers.

“Hmmm,” Tecna nodded slowly as she considered it, “it might be, it's all theory of course, but most likely, the VDRs from Zenith tried to translate our physical data as faithfully as possible, and ended up skewing the normal player baseline.”

“So we're basically our normal selves, sans magic?” Stella clarified.

“Maybe not,” Aisha cut in with a frown, “look here, I have something called a Grace, I can't see any info on it, but the name – Born of the Tides – sounds like me, magically speaking anyway.”

They others found theirs – Fire Soul, Luminous Being, Heart of the Forest, Analytical Accuracy, Aria of the Four Winds – and agreed, it did sound like their magic.

“Maybe we could ask one of the other players,” Bloom suggested, “one of the... beta testers?”

Tecna nodded, “we'll have to find one first, and that means getting out of here.”

The group came to and agreement, and turned to the end of the corridor the two guards had come from.

“Wait,” Stella said before they could leave, “should we, what's the term, loot the armour?”

“Give me a moment,” Tecna knelt down, and began sifting through the pieces, handing them off to Bloom who stacked them in the nearest alcoves. “Well, the armour is armour, but all of the descriptions say 'a shadow of evil still lingers upon the metal,' so, I don't know if it would be worth wearing.”

“Plus we have a lot of bare skin,” Stella added, gesturing to her arms, which were bare like everyone else's, the sweep of her collar bones, and her ankles which were left uncovered by the three-quarter pants and simple flats she wore, “and everyone knows metal on bare skin is a huge no-no outside of jewellery.”

“And then there's the noise factor, and weight we probably don't need,” Aisha continued the line of logic, “what about the weapons?”

“Two [Basic Spears], low stats, probably pretty good for normal 'level ones', and no 'lingering evil,' so who wants one?”

“DIBS!” Stella threw her hand into the air with enthusiasm, at the looks she gathered she deflated with a frown, “what, it's close enough to the Ring of Solaria's staff form that my stave wielding abilities should translate.”

Stella accepted one of the spears from Tecna, leaning it against one shoulder. The outfits they wore had no pockets, and not wanting to loose a potentially useful key, Stella dragged a few locks of her hair over the shoulder her new spear wasn't leaning on, pulling one of the slim locks through the loop at the end of the key, before putting in a tight, self-locking plait to secure the item. It was odd, they all agreed, for a game like this not to have an inventory system, and annoying, now that they had no version of carry space to hold their important items.

Tecna stood with the second spear, looking to the others in question.

Aisha shrugged, “I have some experience with the Trident, I can take the other one. Sound good?”

“Alright,” Bloom agreed, “one last thing to do before we go, before I forget again.” Bloom brought the Party menu up, and select the editing option.

[ **Party Name:** Winx Club  
**Party Members:**  
Bloom  
Stella  
Flora  
Tecna  
Musa  
Aisha]

The girls nodded approvingly at the party's name change. Heading down the corridor, in the direction the enchanted armour had come from, the group slowed when they realised the corridor took a sharp, 90 degree turn to the right.

Tecna took point again, pressing herself against the left wall and sliding along slowly, exposing the corridor around the corner in increments.

“The hallway's clear, there's a door at the end, wooden,” Tecna reported.

“Sounds like our exit,” Flora said, smiling and making a 'let's go' gesture with her hands. The Winx agreed and began making for the door, but as they neared it, six [Basic Armour] materialised.

The Winx had been taking Griselda's combat classes for ages, and they had real world experience dealing with enemies, they grinned and went on the offensive. The group fell into formation and rushed forwards, crossing the final few metres between themselves and their enemies.

Stella and Aisha knocked the swords of the two closest guards aside with their spears, leaving an opening for Bloom and Musa to duck in and behead the first two suits with synchronised kicks.

Flora and Tecna slid through the gap between the duo, grabbing the shafts of the spears belonging to the second pair of guards, pulling them off course and forcing the pointy ends to the walls on either side.

Stella and Aisha leap-frogged Bloom and Musa, taking off the undefended helmets of the spear wielding guards with a coordinated strike, using the momentum to spin into position to block the weapons of the third and final pair, the girls' spears catching under the blade of the small sized axes with the shafts, twisting the weapons to the side.

With a shared look, Musa and Bloom swooped to pick up the two closest helmets they'd taking off, and hurled them with impressive accuracy at the last pair. The thrown helmets smashed into those of the final guards, causing their helmets to go flying.

As the final two guards collapsed, the Winx gave a cheer, stopping only to pick up the some fallen weapons before moving on.

Bloom took one of the arming swords, while Musa picked one of the two small axes, Flora accepted the other sword, while Tecna took one of the spears. The remaining axe and the last spear were left where they were, since they had no way to carry it that didn't interfere with their ability to wield the weapons they'd procured.

The hallway beyond the wooden door had over a dozen doors identical to the one the exited, and at the end was a larger, thicker looking wooden door, sitting slightly ajar.

Realising that the identical doors likely led to more prison cells, they moved across to the closest door, only to discover it wouldn't open. They checked several more doors, to the same result, with no other alternative, the group made for the door at the end of the hall. Tecna sidled up the to opening and peered out, looking for any guards in the room beyond, with one hand she signed to the others, the room looked clear.

They moved.

They remained cautious as they continued through the room, and the next, and the corridor that followed. As they passed one door, Bloom slowed.

“Hey, is anyone else seeing that?” The others turned, following Bloom's pointed finger to the bottom of the door.

“See what?” Stella asked stepping closer, Bloom made a noise of interested surprise.

“There was a dark fog, like a miasma, seeping out from under the door, but it's gone now.”

“Well,” Musa adjusted her grip on her axe, “we don't have any better leads, let's what that's about.”

The others nodded, and Bloom opened the door with caution, they filed in.

“So the rest of you can't see that?” Bloom checked again, “how the miasma just gets thicker the further in the hall it goes?”

The others shook their heads, and Stella began moving with a “well lets-” before Bloom darted forwards to pull her up short.

“Bloom?”

“Hey, can the rest of you move forwards, one at a time, just to that side table up there,” Bloom indicated a small wooden thing, the only real decoration in the latest hall they'd found themselves in. Like the rest of the place, the walls were stone, bare to match the floors.

Sharing a confused look, the others complied, walking one by one to the thing that was in fact a degrading side table. Once the other four were by the table, Bloom gave Stella a 'wait a sec' gesture and joined them.

“Okay Stell', come here,” but Bloom was watching the fog only she could see as Stella joined them. “Huh, so Stella, I need you to be at the rear, cause you're scaring the creepy fog.”

Stella replied with an 'are you serious?' eyebrow raise and an 'alright then' shrug, moving into position as rear guard as the group began moving again.

Tecna gave up point to Bloom, who lead the group further into the miasma.

They saw several doors, but ignored them in favour of finding the source of Bloom's visual hallucination. Or at least they ignored the doors until one opened just before they reached it.

A young woman, wearing the same camisole and ¾ pants at them stopped in the doorway, hand on an axe tucked into a thick leather belt.

“Oh, uh,” the woman looked confused to see them, “hey?” She waved, seemingly forgetting the hand she was waving with held a scroll in it.

“Hey,” Bloom moved into a relaxed position, “I'm Bloom, these are my friends,” she made quick introductions, “and we're... a little lost?”

“Oh... kay?” The woman looked around, like she wasn't sure what was happening, then shook her head, “yeah, no, sorry. Hi, I'm Ephiny, are you also betas?”

“No,” Tecna answered, stepping forward to stand beside Bloom, “this is our first time playing, actually, and we're a bit confused about a few things, were you a beta tester for this game?”

The newly identified Ephiny nodded, stepping out into the corridor properly, closing the door behind her.

“Yep, it took us ages to figure out how to break out of the dungeons though, how did...”

“Have you ever seen the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie?” Bloom asked.

Ephiny didn't answer, instead she gave a 'WTF' face, which quickly gave way to understanding. Her eyebrows raised and she looked the group over, appraising.

“That worked? How were you able to lift the bench?”

“Teamwork,” Aisha answered, “so how were we supposed to get out of the cell?”

“There's lock picks hidden in the straw of the cells,” Ephiny shrugged. “So, um... I was actually on my way to see if I could kill the tutorial boss before the Army of the Church gets here, which should be... like half an hour? I think, do you girls want to... team up?”

The Winx looked at one another, holding a conversation in the sign language they'd learned at Alfea. A moment later, Bloom turned back to Ephiny and nodded.

“We'd be happy to, I hope you don't mind if we ask you some things though, as the 'expert' on the game.”

“Sure,” Ephiny returned the nod, “talk and walk?” She pointed down the hall, in the direction the Winx had been travelling.

* * *

“So what's the deal with the cells?” Musa asked as they walked.

“They're spawn points, for the Event Day Tutorials, out side of Event Days, I think new players are supposed to spawn in the medical ward of the various Churches.”

“Churches?” Bloom frowned, “I thought this was a fantasy game?”

“It depends what you mean by 'fantasy,' I suppose,” Ephiny said, looking a the ginger, “there's a thematic 'Church versus Satanism' subtext going through out the game. The Church is 'Good,' and all magic is 'Evil.'”

“All magic?” Flora said, incredulously.

“Yep,” Ephiny nodded, her reddish-brown corkscrew curls bobbing with the motion. “There are some magicals that _seem_ good, like fairy god-mothers, but the cost of having a wish granted by them, is your soul.”

“How can a game take our souls?” Stella asked.

“They can't,” Ephiny allowed, “but they _can_ take control of your avatar and force you to watch while your body does things without your consent.” The young woman shuddered, “seriously, just, don't do it. No matter how nice a magical from this world seems, it _is_ a trap.”

“Urgh,” Musa mutter quietly, “so where are we off to anyway?”

“Well, unless they've changed things significantly, there are two ways to kill the witch who rules this castle. One, we wait for the Army, who will have a Paladin, who will have a Blessed Weapon, which can kill the witch. Or two, we find the witch's heart, weaken her body enough that the spell protecting her heart falters, and then we wreck it.

“I think I know where her heart is, but it's guarded, and I can't solo the guardian at this level, and I don't think we can all fit in the room with it, _and_ have enough space to manoeuvre. Which is my round about way of saying, we're going to the antechamber in front of the boss room, where you six will wait, while I play kill-chasey with the cerberus, bringing it to you six, for an ambush.”

“That sounds...” Tecna trailed off, unsure whether to finish with 'convoluted,' or 'like a plan.'

“Yeah,” Ephiny grinned, “I know. If it makes you feel any better, I promise it's not a trap. If you six hadn't come along, I would have tried to solo it. Then probably died and respawned in my cell.” The young woman shrugged, gesturing to a door they had drawn to a halt in front of.

“The antechamber,” she explained, pushing the door out of the way to reveal a large rectangular room with a dozen or so columns decorating the length. Three doors, other than the one they'd entered by, sat around the room. Two of them looked like the one they'd come through, but the third...

The third was a deep, sticky red. Larger, and made of heavier looking wood, thicker metal hinge bands reaching across the surface. The Big Door was suspiciously symmetrical, and the group realised it was pair of double doors, rather than a single, the split down the middle barely perceptible. Something in the door's surface seemed to wiggle just out of perception, like seeing the movements of a troupe of ants over grass out of the corner of your eye, the brain couldn't perceive anything beyond the motion.

“Well _that's_ disturbing,” Stella said, trying not to hurl.

“Yep,” Ephiny agreed, looking away from the door, “that happens near bosses, some of the other beta's and I have this theory about hidden psycho-thriller triggers in the game. Anyway, the door I need,” Ephiny raised a hand to point, “should be that one.”

“You sure you want to go by yourself?” Aisha asked, dubious.

Ephiny nodded.

Aisha sighed, “alright, we'll stay here and plan the ambush.”

* * *

It took only ten minutes for Ephiny to come racing back into the antechamber, the _very large, three-headed hell hound_ hot on her tail.

The three spear wielders stepped forward, Bloom gestured for Ephiny to run between them.

“Hey, help Musa,” Bloom gave her a light shove towards the girl in question.

The cerberus slammed into the three spears, the tips sinking into each of the hound's throats. Ephiny spun back to face it, and found Flora half kneeling, with her hands cupped before her. Bloom ran, using Flora's offered hands to boost her jump, the red-head flew over the three thrashing heads.

Flora twisted to roll out of the way as Ephiny and Musa rushed in to plant the axe heads as deep as they could in the two places where the three necks met. Stella let out a shriek of outrage as the spear heads cut along the lines of the throat, forced through muscle exposed by the cerberus as its heads bent backwards, seeking Bloom, blood splattering the five below.

Bloom sunk her blade through the creatures back, aiming for the heart. Clear of the mess, Flora steeled herself and slipped in between her friends, planting her own blade through the creature's chest.

The Winx and Ephiny all dodged backwards as the beast stilled, and slumped to the ground, Bloom rolling from its back and across the floor.

[ **Congratulations:**  
Victory: Cerberus of the Darkened Dawn Keep – Level 07  
400 XP  
350 Virtue]

“Wow,” Ephiny said, looking at the still form of their fallen foe, “you girls are _good_.”

“One of our teachers is a combat nut,” Stella said, trying to wipe away the blood, but only smearing it further. “Urgh.”

Ephiny's eyebrows tried to escape into her hairline, “uh, do you want to... elucidate, on that?”

“Our deputy head mistress used to be...” Bloom cut herself off, Tecna stepping in to cover her.

“We're not actually allowed to talk about what our deputy head mistress used to do, but she took most of our physical conditioning classes.”

“Physical conditioning?” Ephiny sounded... not less concerned.

“Tec', normal people call it P.E.,” Bloom said trying to play it off. Turning back to Ephiny she laughed, “sorry, our phys. ed. classes played a lot more like a LARP session than most schools, I think.”

“Well that is way less concerning,” Ephiny looked a little guilty, “in my defence though, it totally sounded like you teacher was training child soldiers.”

The group laughed.

“Well actually,” Bloom said as the laughs died down, “we're fairies from outer space, I myself am descended from the Dragon that gave birth to the entire universe with its breath.”

“I'm part robot,” Tecna offered.

“ _I'm_ covered in **blood** ,” Stella cut in, looking upset. Bloom made a sympathetic noise and moved over to her, hands halting in the air when she realised there was nothing she could do for her friend. While Bloom and Stella fussed over the blonde's appearance, Musa looked Ephiny over.

“So did you find what you were looking for?” The group's attention snapped back to the beta tester, who reached into a pouch attached to the belt she wore. (Stella wanted to ask her where she got it.)

From the pouch, Ephiny pulled a crystal in the shape of a human heart, deep, tar like veins stretched through the heart, cloudy occlusions making shadows in the crystal's form.

“It looks sick,” Flora said, “decayed, but... not in a good, natural way like leaf litter, more like...”

“Like an infected wound,” Aisha supplied.

“It is,” Ephiny said, putting the heart away, “again, magic is Evil in this world, using it is like drinking poison, it corrupts and destroys. So while I get that you were joking about being... fairies, don't say that where any NPCs can hear you. If the Church has you killed for magic, it results in perma-death, your character data gets wiped.”

The Winx shared a concerned look amongst themselves.

“You know Bloom,” Stella said, “not that I'm not grateful to your folks for this game, but maybe we should have just hung out on the beach for our group vacation?”

“Yeah,” Bloom nodded slowly, “I've got to agree, this game... isn't what I thought it would be.”

“Still,” Aisha cut in, “we are here, so how about we finish this... tutorial?” She gestured to the wriggly door.

Tecna gave a decisive nod, “agreed, Ephiny, what can you tell us about the witch?”

“Well, the first thing to know, after the heart thing, is that she has these figurines which hold extra power...”

* * *

Touching the large doors to open them had felt as unpleasant as the doors had looked, and stepping through left the group feeling like they were not quite clean. Like the faint stickiness left behind after seawater had dried on the skin, it wasn't a really there sensation, but at the same time, it wasn't _not_ there.

The room they entered was dark and gloomy yet spacious, and Bloom saw the miasma that permeated the air lift as the group walked further in. In the centre was a woman, her body was thin, more like leather stretched over a skeleton than and actual person, her skin was so white it seemed blue, even in the yellow light of the flames. Her hair hung down like greasy black spider silk, wrapping her like a cloak, coiling around the candles half melted to the floor in a circle around her.

“ _FIltH!”_ The witch screeched, “ _How dArE YOu enTEr thIs SAcrEd PlAcE!_ _ **DIE**_ _!_ ”

The witch summoned flames to her hands and flung them at the group, who scattered into separate directions.

The Winx broke into pairs, and began circling the witch, Ephiny on the other hand, used the back of her axe to smash a small figurine, which caused the witch to flinch and snarl. Aisha darted in first, batting away the witch's hand as she tried to take a swipe with her long, knife like fingernails. Musa ducked in under the spear and arms, and landed a swipe of her own with her axe. The duo spun out of the way before the witch could respond.

Stella and Bloom went next, then Tecna and Flora, both pairs using the same attack strategy, knocking aside the witch's attacks with the spear, and striking a blow with their swords.

As Aisha and Musa went in for another strike, they had to dodge backwards, the witch anticipating their attack and casting a wall of fire around herself.

The next minute or so was spent dodging fireballs that flung outwards from the flaming barrier, Ephiny continuing to smash the figurines scattered throughout the room as she went. As the wall began to die down, Bloom whistled and signed a new attack strategy to her friends.

The witch screeched as the six began dodging around her, unable to see the plan until it was too late.

Flora and Bloom came from behind, sliding across the floor with their swords to slice at the back of the witch's knees. At the same time, Musa and Tecna came from the front, Musa sliding her ax across the ground to leave her hands free as Tecna swung her spear out to Musa at the last second; Musa grabbed they spear just below the metal tip and they leapt, up and over the witch's arms, catching her throat with the shaft held steady between them, forcing her to bend backwards.

When the witch's head hit the floor, the duo shifted, using their shins and body weight to hold the spear down.

As the Flora and Bloom got clear, Stella and Aisha slid their spears between the witch's arms and her body, using the witch's own body to hold one end of the spears, while the fairies held down the other end, effectively pinning her arms. The witch tried to flail, tried to pull her legs out from under her, but they were bent at an angle that made that very difficult.

In the next instant, Bloom and Flora were there, shoving the blades of their swords through the witch's body, where her heart used to be.

The entire group tensed as the witch's hair began to writhe like a billion silk strand snakes.

“By the Grace of God,” Ephiny's voice rang out, the Winx turned in time to see her bring the back of her axe's head down on the crystal heart, shattering it to a hundred pieces.

The witch screamed, gargled through the blood in her lungs, and went up in flames just as the door burst open again and a large number of soldiers came pouring in.

[ **Limited Time Event** :  
Sacrilege of the Witch Part 01  
Objective: Kill the Queen – Complete  
Bonus Objectives:  
Destroy the Witch's Heart – Complete]

[ **Congratulations:**  
Victory: Queen of Darkness – Level 13  
800 XP  
700 Virtue  
Bounty Reward Available – Witch of the Darkened Dawn Keep]

A broad shouldered man in a suit of armour stepped forward, eyeing the scene before him.

“You girls killed the witch?” His eyebrow was raised, and he looked disbelieving.

“We did,” Ephiny proclaimed, standing proudly.

“Impressive,” the man allowed, “especially since you're all...”

“We're all what?” Stella stepped forward, glare settling over her face.

“...so... young,” the man finished, uncomfortably; the group could tell that hadn't been his original description, but they let it slide. “Please, my ladies, allow us to escort you to safety.”

The Winx shared a look, then looked to Ephiny, who nodded and gestured to the army, indicating it was alright to go with them. The Winx shared another look, and retrieved their weapons. Those that had been near the witch when she went up in flames dissolved at the first touch. The girls grimaced, and Musa bent to retrieve her axe.

As Ephiny and the Winx followed the soldiers through the antechamber, the man who seemed to be in charge gave them a curious look.

Figuring out what he wanted to ask, Ephiny answered as nonchalantly as possible, “we also killed the dog.” The large corpse of the demonic canine had only just begun to melt. The soldiers seemed like they wanted to give the seven young woman as wide a berth as they were giving the corpse.

“Are you ladies... adventurers?” The man who was probably in charge asked, in a tone of voice that let them know he thought it was unlikely.

“Something like that,” Ephiny replied with sharp edged smile.

“Ephiny,” Flora admonished the young woman, “be nice to soldiers who came to rescue us.”

“You're right,” Ephiny dipped her head to Flora in acknowledgement, then turned back to the man in charge, “I'm sorry, that was unnecessarily confrontational of me.” Her tone made it clear she was apologising because Flora had asked, not because she was actually sorry.

“ _KEY_!” Stella's sudden shout had everyone turning to look at her, “I forgot I had it when we couldn't open the doors!”

Stella took off running, retracing their earlier journey to the dungeons. With a brief 'excuse us,' the Winx and Ephiny followed after.

After a long, confused and shocked silence, the army began making their way to the dungeons as well.

* * *

As Stella slid the key free from her hair, Bloom slammed through the door to the dungeon corridor.

“Wait,” Stella turned back in surprise, raising an eyebrow in question. Bloom gave her a 'half a moment' gesture and turned to the others, “Musa, Aisha, Tecna, go grab those two weapons we left behind earlier,” the trio found the door they'd come out of and slipped inside. “Sorry Stella, but we don't know if there _are_ other prisoners down there, or if there are guards, or traps.”

“Right, sorry,” Stella gave her friend a sheepish grin, “I just got a little bit ahead of myself when I remembered I had it,” she lifted the key in reference.

“Hold up,” Ephiny looked at the key, then to the weapons Aisha and Tecna carried as they returned from their dungeon corridor. “How do you have extra weapons, and where did you get the key?”

“There were eight guards in our corridor,” Flora explained as Stella opened the first wooden door, “six by the exit, plus the two that came to investigate the noise our door made when we pulled it off the hinges. One of the guards that came to check on us had the key.”

“Huh,” Ephiny sounded impressed as she followed the Winx beyond the door, “I didn't know that was a thing, but then, we've never had enough people to lift the bench and pop the hinges. I wonder if it's triggered spawning, but is it the noise or the method?”

“Hello? Players?” Aisha called into the hallway of cells, spear at the ready.

“Fucking finally!” a male voice came from about half way down, “let us out of here already!”

The girls made faces of disgust at each other as they moved to find the exact cell the voice had come from.

Three young men waited inside a cell, one of them leaning against the bars with a thunderous expression. The other two were pressed against a wall, as far from him as they could get.

The angry one sneered when he saw the girls, “well, let me out of here!”

“Alright, just hold on,” Stella said, scowling at his attitude. He moved to stand right by the door.

“Come on, come on!” Stella twisted the key back into her hand as the boy heckled her.

“You need to stop, and be patient, you telling me to come on, isn't going to change the events, so maybe don't?”

“JUST OPEN THE DOOR YOU C*^T!” Stella stepped back and out of reach as he lunged, threading his arms through the bars to grab for the key.

Calmly, Stella turned to the other two young men in the cell, “I'm sorry, but I don't feel safe releasing this boy, and we're going to wait for the army to catch up.”

Bloom stepped close to her friend, pressing a comforting hand to the blonde's lower back. She could feel tremors in the other girl's body.

“I'll go find Mr 'in-charge',” Ephiny said before booking it down the corridor with a muttered 'fucking dude-bros.'

She didn't have to go far, just a few rooms down she found the slower moving army.

“Ah, you again,” she greeted the man from before, “my cohort realised she had the cell key earlier, but one of the prisoners is... problematic, if you men wouldn't mind assisting? We're in the monster hunting business, not the man-slaughter business.”

The man frowned, but motioned for several of his soldiers to follow her.

“Thank you...” Ephiny eyed him, “I didn't catch your name earlier.” she admitted at last.

“General Mikail of the South Eastern Holy Battalion.”

“Great, thanks General, come on boys,” Ephiny and her newly acquired soldiers took off, letting the army continue at its slower pace behind them. (Though now that Mikail knew the rooms ahead were clear, their pace did increase somewhat.)

Back in the dungeon hallway, the boy was demanding a weapon from the Winx, calling them dykes when they refused, threatening to... hurt them if they didn't co-operate.

“Sir, step back from the door,” one of the soldiers demanded as they arrived, “stand against the far wall and remain silent.”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do, NPC f*99*t.”

The girls saw a slight tightening of the soldier's hand on his sword pommel.

“I'm a soldier of the South Eastern Holy Battalion, on a Sacred mission to recover the prisoners of this keep, and if you do not co-operate, I will be forced to assume you have fallen victim to the Witch Queen's magic, and I will terminate you.” The proclamation was met with silence, so the soldier repeated his earlier demand, “step back from the door, stand against the far wall and remain silent.”

This time, the boy in the cell complied, making jerky head and shoulder motions, as if he were asking, 'what the hell?' over and over.

Stella stepped forwards and unlocked the door, gesturing for the other two boys to come out. The boys scurried, refusing to look at the foul-mouthed third.

“Are you two okay?” She asked, ushering them away from the cell.

“We can't log out, and _he_ broke the lock picks, and-” the boy sniffed, hands fluttering in distress as he tried to explain what had happened.

“It's alright,” Flora said softly, wrapping the boy in a hug as Stella did the same for his friend, when the girls released them, the boys both seemed much calmer. “We're going to get you out of here, and you won't have to see that boy again, alright?”

The boys nodded, and the Winx escorted them back into the outer corridor, where the rest of the army was finally arriving.

Ephiny stayed behind to help the soldiers clap the third boy in irons.

Before the boys could be taken from the corridor, Tecna called out to them.

“Hey, what did you mean, when you said you couldn't log out?”

“The option isn't in the menu, at least, we couldn't find it, the place where it should have been is blank, and none of the GMs are answering our messages.”

The boys were taken out through the larger doors at the end of the corridor, wood thumping closed behind them with a loud, ominous bang.

“What's wrong?” Ephiny appeared with the soldiers, the foul mouthed boy in shackles and thankfully gagged. The girls immediately ushered her back through the dungeon corridor door.

“Is there a special... anything that you need to do to log off?” Musa asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“No?” Ephiny shook her head, confused, “you just open the menu and-”she'd opened her menu to show the girls the button, only to find it blank. “Ah,” she said with sudden understanding, “well, that might be a problem. Still, first day bugs do happen.”

“The GMs aren't answering messages,” Tecna said, explaining what the boys had said.

“That... is not good,” Ephiny admitted to the others, “but it could just mean they're overwhelmed with first day problems... but it is odd that they wouldn't send out a system wide message to let everyone know that _they_ know about the problem. If only to stop the number of messages about the bug.” She ran a hand over her face, letting out a groaning 'urgh.' “This probably means they won't be finding my message about 'Veinous Maximus'.”

Ephiny paused to shudder and hold back the urge to vomit, “and here I was hoping they'd ban that asshole.”

“I can't believe anyone would act like that,” Aisha scowled.

“They think they can get away with it because they're 'anonymous' online, and 'it's not like it's real life so it doesn't matter,' completely ignoring they're making real comments to real people.”

“Alright,” Bloom cut through the gloomy topic, “so is there anything else we can do about the log out bug?”

Ephiny considered for a moment, then shook her head.

Bloom looked at each of the Winx, then nodded, decision made. “Alright, then let's get back to freeing prisoners.”

* * *

“Why are there so many empty cells?” Flora asked as the last of the prisoners were lead out of the corridor. There had been a few more grumpy players, but non as violent or vile as their first rescue.

“It's a spawning point, we only had...” Ephiny eyed the ceiling as she tried to recall the numbers, “a hundred and five players, but each spawning castle can support up to two thousand players. Each of the twenty corridors holds twenty cells with a max capacity of...” Ephiny turned sharply, glancing back and forth between the Winx, lips moving like she was counting them.

“Max capacity of?” Stella prompted.

“ _Five_ ,” Ephiny glowered, “the cells have a max spawning capacity of five players.”

“Our diving rigs?” Musa asked Tecna, who closed her eyes and considered the possibility.

“That seems likely,” Tecna said at last, opening her eyes, “the Virtual Diving Rigs from Zenith are trying to mesh with the technology that Divine Kingdom runs on, but we saw it before with us already being partied up when we materialised, we're on the same local network, so it may have tried to keep us together by... enabling a higher spawn capacity.”

“Hold on,” Ephiny interrupted, “what are you talking about?”

“We aren't using the Nerve Gear to log in,” Aisha explained, “we're using a different interface technology, it's... having unexpected side effects.”

“There shouldn't be any tech that's compatible with the systems though, that's why every game had to clone the Cardinal System, because it was the only function operating system.”


	6. Fate Saga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had a go at adapting Winx in the theme of the Live Action Reboot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross-posted on tumblr  
> -  
> From the long forgotten recesses of my files: here’s the outline (for episode 1) and notes (for the series) for how I would have handled it... except not, because I used Beatrix* and I would not have bothered with her if I could help it. I replaced Terra with our usual cast though. (...re-replaced? unplaced? deplaced? meh, nvm.)
> 
> *Beatrix is apparently the character replacing the entire Trix (last time I dared to pay proper attention) and I figured I might as well.

Episode one:

We open on aerial views of Gardenia, showing the town early in the day and meandering into Vanessa's Flower Shop. Bloom is helping her mother out around the shop, sorting a new arrival of decorative vases and notices one is chipped. She scolds it, “first day and you're already on the discount shelf,” puts it down and calls out to her mother when she can't find the ticket gun.

As she walks away to find it, a close up on the vase shows the damage repairing itself (or already gone).

Bloom and her mother banter for a bit, and Bloom teases her mother that 'working for my summer break wasn't what I had in mind.' Her mother teases back and implies that Bloom might be getting a very late gift for her sixteenth birthday. A _very_ late gift.

When Bloom guesses 'car', her mother mother replies that 'it does have wheels and she can use it to carry things,' before having a friendly stare down with Bloom which leads Bloom to 'it’s a bike isn't it.'

Bloom returns to the vases with the ticket gun, but can't find the spot of damage on the vase, and decided she must have imagined it.

Bloom gets back to work, though slightly uneasy.

[scene change]

It is clearly later in the day, the sun getting low, Bloom is checking her phone and walking down the street, a delicious looking beverage in one hand. A girl about the same age as Bloom spots her as she's out for a walk of her own.

Smirking the girl strides up to Bloom and deliberately bumps into her, spilling the drink over both of them and pushing Bloom into a nearby hedge.

The girl starts going off at Bloom, demanding to be repaid for the [high end fashion brand] shirt that Bloom has just ruined.

Struggling to get out of the hedge, Bloom fires back, identifying the girl as Mitzy, and demanding to know why the girl is always like this. Wanting to know what she (Bloom) had ever done to her (Mitzy) that made her want to bully Bloom, even on their school holidays.

Mitzy answers back with something inane, and Bloom shrieks trying to lunge at Mitzy while still half in the hedge.

The Hedge ignites, and Mizty bolts, leaving Bloom to scramble from the burning hedge by her self and scrabble for her phone to call the fire department.

Bloom stares at the burning hedge in shock.

[scene transition]

Bloom stares at the smoking hedge in shock, it is even later in the day, almost dusk, and there is now a fire truck beside her. She is startled back to reality by one of the firemen asking her if she's alright.

She assures him (identifying him as her father) that she's okay but... she thinks she might have started the fire.

Her father, confused, asks what she means by that, and she explains that she thinks her anger might have been what started the fire.

Weird things have been happening to her, something strange is going on. Her father looks worried but says there's likely a good explanation and they can talk more at home, and does Bloom need a lift?

[scene change]

Bloom and her father – Mike – arrive home together to find a worried Vanessa who's heard about the fire. (Because Mike called her earlier.)

As they enter their house, Bloom frowns at a nice looking car because it's parked in what is technically their family's visitor parking. She asks if they have a guest, (Is it Grandma?) only to be told they don't have anyone visiting, and the conversation moves to Bloom's concerns she shared with her father.

[scene shift]

Interior of the house, the family sits down and Mike and Vanessa ask Bloom to tell them about the things she's been dealing with, the 'weird stuff going on around her'.

She tells them about several things, seemingly small things that could just be tricks of the mind, but which happen far to frequently to be normal... unless she has early onset dementia, she asks if they know if her birth family had a history of mental illness, but her parents don't know.

Talking together they decide that now is a good time for Bloom to receive the few items left to her by her birth family.

There's a medallion with strange symbols, a blanket sized for an infant, and a book in a strange language that Bloom swears she can _almost_ read.

Her parents leave Bloom to go through her things and let her know they're there if she needs them.

Bloom has a montage of researching the symbols on the medallion and comes up with an ancient stone ring (like Stonehenge but smaller), dozens scattered around the planet that have similar symbols. (fringe scientists say aliens, but all folk lore associated with them falls under ' _fairy_ tales'.)

During this montage a live bunny moves around the scenes, occasionally getting hugged as an emotional support bunny. It is a strange bluish shade of grey.

[scene change]

At breakfast the next morning Bloom tells her parents what she's discovered about the Fairy Rings, and asks if she can go see the closest one. Her parents share a look and take her outside to show her the car Bloom frowned at yesterday.

“It's your late present from Grandma.” her parents tell her, and Bloom expresses joyed disbelief, then sadness that she'd missed her Grandma again, mentioning that she hasn't seen her in so long she probably wouldn't recognise her if they passed in the street.

[brief montage]

Bloom prepares for her road trip, her parents checking the route with her and helping her pack her bags, giving the rabbit goodbye kisses as she leaves it with her family.

Bloom drives for a few minutes, various backgrounds passing by the windows (possibly one or two outfit changes) until she comes to a heavy and ancient feeling forest which sprawls across the land covering at least part of a mountain range.

Bloom gets out of the car and gives her parents a call to let them know she arrived. She jokes that it would be easier to ask Grandma if only she didn't spend 99.9% of the time 'off the grid'.

Bloom hikes through the forest to a clearing part way up the mountainside.

The circle of standing stones is partly moss covered and Bloom seems reluctant to remove the moss because she's in a nature reserve. She moves into the circle and pulls out her Medallion to compare the symbols only for the stones to begin humming. Bloom stumbles as the stones light up and makes for the edge of the ring, but before she can exit there's a flash of light. When it fades the Fairy Ring Bloom was investigating is empty.

[scene change]

Bloom trips and hits the ground, retching slightly before scrambling to her feet clearly dizzy, she stumbles and reaches out to grab one of the standing stone only to pull back, eyeing the stone warily.

Then has a 'what the hell?' moment, because not only are the stones moss free, they seem to be made of a different type of stone, and she is no longer in the same place.

A loud screeching noise pierces the air and Bloom startles, but then a muddied voice says something she can't quite make out, and she decides “screw it, people! Someone will know what's going on!... and I have literally no better options.”

Racing through the very different forest Bloom quickly finds a young woman fighting what she can only call monsters. The young woman, a blonde in strange garments wielding a staff with a fancy ornament at one end, seems to be tiring.

Bloom grabs a heavy looking branch and starts whacking. The duo manage to do okay, but they can both see it's a losing fight. They manage to get close enough for the blonde to tell Bloom the plan, which is just: make a gap and get back to the Fairy Ring.

They race back along the path Bloom took and she tries asking what the hell is going on, but the Blonde is too out of breath. They make it to the Ring and the blonde tells Bloom “hands on the staff”, Bloom complies without question and the stones flare again, shifting both of them to yet another Fairy Circle.

The blonde falls on her ass clearly worn out, and Bloom turns as she drops to her knees to puke.

A voice calls out to a 'princess Stella' and a strict looking woman appears to inform the blonde that she'd been expected three hours ago. The blonde, apparently princess Stella explains she'd been attacked, her transport had been hacked somehow and she'd been dumped out she didn't even know where, and would have probably died if not for her saviour.

Proper introductions are made between Bloom, Princess Stella and the stern woman who's name is Madam Griselda. Stella informs Bloom that since they just survived life and death together, they are totes besties now.

Bloom responds with a dubious “cool... where are we?”

Stella: the Arrival Ring of Alfea Academy of Fairy Magic, duh?

Bloom: Where on Earth is that?

Stella: what's Earth?

Griselda: ahem! Perhaps this is a conversation for inside, others may be trying to use the Ring, we still have several students not yet here. Go see Headmistress Faragonda!

Griselda makes Stella sign and gives her a student ID blank and a Bloom a visitor pass as she shoos them away. Bloom looks back to see Griselda doing something with one of the stone pillars.

Stella and Bloom chat as they walk, Stella trying to figure out why Bloom's so confused. They have to stop part way down the path as Bloom takes a moment to freak out as she realises she's not on Earth anymore but a Planet called Magix, and the girl in front of her is the crown princess of an entirely different Planet called Solaria.

Bloom: what the hell is my life right now?! I was just trying to find out more about my birth parents!

Stella (awkwardly holding one hand and patting her forearm): look, I've never heard of your home world, but you saved my life, and I like you, so no matter what happens, you'll be okay, I'll look out for you.

They resolve to ask Headmistress Faragonda if she knows anything about Earth when Stella checks in with her as instructed by Griselda.

The duo pass out of the trees that were blocking their view and Bloom has a 'oh wow' moment as she sees Alfea for the first time.

[artistic scene change]

The camera leaves the duo, panning around the school, showing various other young women, (pausing briefly on a few that fans of the cartoon will recognise) before focusing back down through a window to catch up with Stella and Bloom who have made their way to Faragonda's office.

After knocking they are called inside and Bloom pauses as she catches sight of Faragonda, who looks at her with some surprise and what almost seems like recognition, but the expression is gone in an instant and Faragonda asks the girls what happened.

Stella launches into a speech which catches the audience up on her side of the story before Bloom quickly recaps the episode thus far – got a medallion left to me by my birth parents, went searching, found stones, got teleported, kicked butt, ran, arrived here.

Faragonda tells Bloom that without knowing which Ring she'd initially come from, they'd be hard pressed to send her back. They could try a thing which boils down to return call, but that would send her first to the place she and Stella had been running from.

Considering it too dangerous, Faragonda promises to look into things and offers Bloom a place to stay in the mean time, telling her she's welcome to sit in on classes while she's here – after all, Bloom could only have entered the school without a special allowance if she herself was a fairy. (The guest pass doesn’t count)

Stella, super excited about the idea tugs Bloom by the hand, dragging her from the room.

[Scene shift]

The camera pans around to show the school's courtyard from Fragonda's window as Stella shows Bloom to the dorms via the scenic route.

Fragonda stands by the window watching them.

Griselda appears beside her watching over her shoulder.

Griselda: should I prepare for trouble?

Fragonda: … yes, and rather a lot of it I'm afraid...

[Episode ends.]

* * *

Next episode the rest of the Winx are introduced, and Bloom begins to learn about the powers she's recently had awakening within her. Fate Saga exclusive character Beatrix begins cropping up.

The Winx begin attempting to investigate Bloom's past via the Medallion, and Faragonda watches on with worry.

Tecna manages to trick out Bloom's phone so she can call her parents to tell them she's met some friends and found a lead and won't be home for a while yet.

Tecna gives the location data she gained from Bloom's phone call to Faragonda in the hopes of helping Bloom get home.

Episode ends with Bloom awakening from a dream (of Daphne), and Beatrix believing she's found a lead to her own investigation.

* * *

The following (4**) episodes focus on a mix of Bloom learning magic, the group researching the Medallion and discovering the markings are an ancient dialect belonging to Domino – but that's been a dead world for ages and the dialect wasn't _exclusive_ to the planet.

Bloom has more Daphne dreams; fragments of the dream seem to be Daphne giving her lessons of a spiritual/magical nature.

The Winx realise Beatrix is up to something and share their observations with Faragonda, but when things come to a head at the end of the season, they're the ones who are there at the right time and the Winx fight Beatrix who is trying to steal a crystalline flame.

The artefact destroys Beatrix in the end and Faragonda assures the Winx they aren't at fault and oh btw, Faragonda has found a way to get Bloom home.

The Winx want Bloom to stay with them, but she says she needs to go see her parents, but she'll be back if that's okay with Faragonda, because there's still some things she needs to investigate.

Season closes with several short scenes:  
Griselda and Faragonda talk about what happened, and suspect Beatrix wasn't a real person, and refer to the Crystal Flame as Daphne's Heart. Griselda tells Faragonda that it might be time to come clean with Bloom.

A sooty, smoking doll on a table surrounded by a trio of out of focus women is the recipient of scorn and derision, the doll looks like Beatrix and the trio make it clear Griselda and Faragonda's suspicions were correct and Beatrix was a fake person the “mysterious trio” had made to investigate a lead at Alfea.

Bloom returns to Earth to find her car dusty but intact, and with a little magic she manages to get it started and drives home. When she arrives her mother welcomes her and tells her she has excellent timing: her Grandma is there. Excited Bloom races into the next room where her father is, but stops and stares in confusion when she sees-

“Ms Faragonda?”

End Season

* * *

Season two reveals Faragonda was responsible for hiding Bloom on Earth at the behest of a dying Daphne, Daphne's Heart is in fact, actually Daphne who used ancient magic to preserve her consciousness so she could pass on her knowledge to Bloom, who is basically the last of their bloodline and the (as far as anyone knows) only survivor of Domino.

Season 2 introduces the Boys and the Trix. (Also Aisha if she can't be shoehorned into season 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **unless it’s changed or I’m recalling wrong, the Fate Saga season 1 episode count was 6 six hour long episodes?


	7. Bloom & Dia walkthrough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genre Shift > the show is the fictionalized account of their real lives* | Youtuber AU
> 
> *The Winx+ met at boarding school, and had a homebrew campaign which turned into the story of the Winx Club, several years, comics and video games later, Bloom and Diaspro get ready to do a walk through tutorial for the Season 1 Winx Club RPG in preparation for the season 4 expansion.
> 
> Abandoned Fic Ideas | Oneshot

You move the mouse cursor down and hover it over the latest video from your favourite girl group blog “The Winx Club”, carefully you debate with yourself over clicking it.

“Season One Alfea Walkthrough **MASSIVE SPOILERS** ” it reads. You've played the Alfea RPG a few times through, but there's still a few achievements and levels you can't quite figure out. You want to figure it out for yourself, but you're already two seasons behind, and with the season four expansion just around the corner...

but on the other hand, as far as you know, no one else has a 100% completion rate for the RPG...

Choice made, you click the link, as the video's opening theme plays, you open it up to full screen and drag your notebook over, ready to learn the secrets of Alfea.

* * *

The theme ends and the screen changes to show two young women on a comfortable looking couch, one ginger, the other blonde, both very familiar.

“Hey everyone, I'm Bloom, and today I have a very special guest with me,” the ginger haired woman indicates the blode beside her, who waves at the camera.

“Heeey! Now I know you all hate me, but for those of you who don't know, I'm Diaspro, I run a jewellery blog-”

“Link is in our affiliated sites page,” Bloom cuts in, Diaspro nods in agreement and continues on.

“-and I am the inspiration for the bitchy fairy princess of Eraklyon, Diaspro. I'm here today because of the secret that apparently _no one_ has unlocked, um...” Diaspro stops to giggle, “so the thing about several of the achievements is that you actually need to unlock the Fairy of Gems, or Diaspro as a playable character.”

Bloom nodded along with Diaspro's words before speaking up, “a lot of you know that Alfea, the game, is based on our real life boarding school, that we started off as a home brew D&D group, and then I drew some comics of our adventures, and then Tecna put together the sprite game, and then and then and then, until we had...” Bloom gestured vaguely at the screen, “what we have today.”

“That's not to say,” Diaspro added, as Bloom paused, “that everything in the games is completely fiction or completely true, like, 99.8% is a mix of the two.”

“Right, the Bloom versus Diaspro confrontation and the ensuing rivalry is a lot more made up than true. When we were putting the story elements together in the original comics, we had this one teacher, who inspired the character of Valtor, and he advised me to really play up the 'enemy' angle of my fight with Diaspro. By the time we got around to making the game, we realised he was... we'll let's just say there's a reason he inspired Valtor.”

“The trio who inspired the Trix,” Diaspro said, “are actually really nice, they all really enjoyed the idea of playing evil witches, but 'Valtor' was basically his story equivalent, sans magic.”

“Huge on the division and fighting, massive tool. Kinda creepy in a pervert sort of way, did you notice that?” Bloom seemed to have forgotten about the audience she was meant to be addressing.

“Yes! Oh my god, I thought it was just me, but he was full on...” Diaspro couldn't seem to find the word she was after and made a 'you know?' gesture.

“Yeah!” Bloom responded, like she knew exactly what Diaspro was trying to convey. “Oh my god,” She perked up, seemingly remembering the camera, “anyway!” The duo giggled, and Bloom leaned forwards to pick up a controller.

“Anyway,” she repeated, “the thing is, we put a second character path for Diaspro which depends on your first interaction with her, which requires a high 'diplomacy' score, which you can only get by attending Classes with Madam Dufour, the etiquette teacher. Now, we are going to start from scratch-”

The screen wiped to the left and the women were replaced with the menu screen for the Alfea RPG.

“Just so we can do a full walk through, because there are some unfound secrets that aren't Diaspro related.”

[ **New Game** ] was selected from the menu.

[ **Tutorial** ] [Skip Tutorial]

"We're going to do the tutorial, because there's some stuff to find here,” Bloom said as a flyover shot of Gardenia graced the screen, converting into cg as it zoomed into Bloom's window. “Now this opening shot, was done with a drone camera Tecna rigged, and we actually used it quite a bit for the larger panning shots throughout the game.”

_On screen Vanessa woke Bloom with a call about school._

D: there's quite a few areas in the game where real world shots were used, isn't there?

B: yeah, um, Tecna and Timmy did this thing where they took like, a bajillion shots of different areas, and somehow – I don't code, don't at me – converted the photos into like, texture brushes and 3D sets. I don't understand the whole thing, but they basically cheated.

_The cutscene between Bloom and her mother ended and the player HUD appeared. Bloom stood still for a moment longer as she continued._

B: there's some areas, like my bedroom, which are true to life, or used to be, my room has changed a lot since then, and then there are other areas like some of the dungeons, which are mish-mashes of different areas we got to explore for various school trips. And then Alfea itself which is completely synthetic, um, or made from scratch in 3D modelling.

B:... can you tell I don't know what I'm talking about?

D: I had a vague hint, yeah, but it's like, so subtle, I don't think the viewers have noticed

B: Oh good, I should probably distract them, just in case.

D: Good idea, so, your season one bedroom.

B: Right, so there's a couple of things in my room to collect, and in case any one was wondering-

_A small inset screen appeared in the top left corner of the shot, it showed the duo on the couch_

B: -I am doing this partly from memory, I recently did a play through so I knew what I was doing for this walk through, so it _is_ a walk through not a let's play, because there's one thing that annoys me about 'walk through' videos online, and that's when they're 'let's plays' not 'walk throughs,' you need to know what you're doing and instruct others on how to do something for it to be a 'walk through' because you are literally 'walking them through it!'

D: and if you're just playing for the first time, and figuring it out yourself, that's not walking someone through it, it's letting them tag along on your _play_ through. It's weird though how people don't make more comments on that, the misuse of the term walk through when it comes to videos, like if the _written_ walk through was like that, then holy crap the comments and flames.

B: yeah, but speaking of _written_ walk throughs, while I did just play this the other day, to ensure I'm not missing anything-

_In the inset screen, Diaspro reached down out of sight and came back with a large stack of paper with writing on it, for a few seconds, as she held it forwards for the camera, the two screens swapped places so the viewers could more easily see the diagram Diaspro was holding on displaying_

B: -we will be using our official, I double checked it the week just gone, game manual, this one is our copy, but we are planning to release them officially later this week, complete with some concept art for secret areas which _didn't_ make the final cut of the games.

_The screens swapped back so the game was once again the main display, the inset of the girls disappearing._

B: Okay, enough delay, let's begin!


	8. Oeneis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winx Club x the Long Dark*
> 
> The Winx go on a mission to stop the Trix but a spell seemingly hurls them through reality and lands them in the bodies of their other reality counterparts.  
> Counterparts who've just crashed in the frozen wastes somewhere very, very desolate and remote, injured** and alone but for each other.  
> Except there's more to their predicament then they realise.
> 
> *The Long Dark is a survival game set in the remote reaches of Canada after a Geomagnetic Storm screws over the world. The place they end up is heavily inspired by the game, but not 100% what's going on.
> 
> **WARNING for depictions of injuries and crash related physical trauma, I remember I did do a little research on injuries for this fic, but take the medical stuff with a grain of salt.
> 
> Abandoned Fic Ideas | oneshot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oeneis is a genus of artic butterfly.

Bloom woke disoriented and cold, her ears ringing, there was a pressure on her chest and her body felt heavy, both painful and numb at the same time.

She coughed to try and move the pressure, only to realise it was from something actually pressing down on her chest. With a struggle, she managed to get her arms to move, pushing at the cause of the weight, it barely budged. In the gloom Bloom squinted, trying to figure out what the cloth covered weight was.

It was a seat, she realised with a shock of clarity, a plane seat. And it was pinning her to the ground.

With a grunt and a struggle, she managed to work her way out from under it. Far away she thought she heard someone calling out.

Bloom tried to call back, but could only cough, desperate to be heard, she slammed her hand against the side of the plane a few time. Nearby a startled noise sounded from a pile of chairs and luggage.

Realising she wasn't alone in the wreckage of the small plane, Bloom crawled over to the pile, and began digging the other survivor out.

“Ste-” Bloom gasped as she tried to say her friend's name, recognising the sun gold hair she uncovered, but unable to draw in enough breath. A weak call for help came from her buried friend.

“Bloom!” Aisha's voice was strong but scared, Bloom turned to locate her, standing in the opening where the back half of the plane should have been. “Bloom!”

“Stella's-” the breathlessness was less this time, “trapped.” Bloom ignored the warm spittle on her lips and kept digging. Aisha limped forwards to help and soon they had Stella free of the baggage.

“Thanks,” Stella's voice is a whisper, she dragged in a deep breath and promptly chokes on the frigid air.

“Where are we?” Asks, but the other princesses shake their heads, “there's nothing but snow and forest outside as far as I can see, and I don't know where the others are.”

The trio shivered as a chill wind finds its way inside the ruined plane.

“Where... ever we... are,” Bloom swayed as she tried to talk with not enough breath, “we aren't... dressed... for it.”

“Bloom!” While the other two agreed their odd outfits – creamy-pink and light teal uniforms Bloom would describe as 'catholic' – weren't fit for the weather, they were more concerned about Bloom, who could seem to catch her breath.

“Is there pain?” Aisha asked as she undid the buttons of Bloom's cardigan with half frozen fingers. Bloom gestured to the left side of her ribs. A few seconds later she gasped as Aisha got the blouse unbuttoned and Bloom's skin was exposed to the cold, cold air.

“There's a bruise,” Bloom winced as Aisha pressed gently along her ribs, “does it feel like a break? I can't feel-” Bloom shook her head.

“What about that, collapsed lung thing,” Stella leaned over Aisha's shoulder to get a better look, “numy... uh, something... thacks? Urgh, why didn't I take the medical course?”

Bloom pointed to Stella and gave her a thumbs up, letting the others know she was thinking the same thing. Having taken the offered medical course at Alfea, and having woken pinned under the chair, Bloom's best guess was either severe bruising, or an actual collapsed lung. The fact there didn't seem to be a broken rib involved was both odd, and a good sign. It meant one less thing to worry about, and there was a chance the lung would heal on its own. Maybe.

Aisha redid Bloom's buttons, “you need to rest and heal then.”

'Friends, others,' Bloom signed.

“I can go look for the others,” Stella replied, glad she had taken the elective for Alfean sign language at least. (Although, technically it had been a mandatory class once Griselda had _strongly_ suggested it to the Winx Club as a supplement to their tactics lessons.)

“I don't like the idea of you going out there alone,” Aisha cut in, “but we can't leave Bloom here alone either.” The trio glanced at the wall of crushed metal where the plane's cockpit should have been. “Plus it is seriously cold out there, the wind chill is insane.”

“We'll just use momento of the hearth and-”

“There's a reason I haven't started healing Bloom,” Aisha's face was grim, “I tried outside, but I can't use my magic. At all.”

Bloom had a moment of vertigo as she realised the cold she was feeling wasn't just physical, it was soul deep. She knew without checking, her magic was gone as well.

Stella shook her head, denial clear on her face as she tried to conjure a basic light, something she'd been doing since before she could talk. (Something she'd been _born_ doing if her mother's stories were to be believed.) No light appeared, no magic answered her call.

“No, no way. That's not possible.” Stella stumbled, sitting down heavily on a the nearest surface, a large suitcase. “How can we be alive if our magic is gone, if half our _souls_ are _gone_?!”

“I DON'T KNOW!” Aisha yelled, “but you need to calm down.”

Bloom clapped her hands loudly before Stella could argue out of fear driven anger, 'cold,' the ginger signed, 'bags, look through, warm clothes.' Both of the other girls looked abashed, and began rifling through the various suitcases and bags they could find. There were a few jackets and some jeans, but no real winter clothing.

Still, jeans were better than the stockings they were wearing. Finding pants that fit, the trio slipped them on over their clothes, annoyed they couldn't find any decent boots, their own shoes were all dark blue loafers.

“Are we wearing uniforms? Like, school uniforms?” Stella asked, as she plucked at the outfit.

“I think so?” Aisha was just as confused, “I mean, maybe, but this symbol,” she indicated the artistic 'A' on her own cardigan, “this is the Alfea 'A'.”

Bloom clapped twice in quick succession, 'wearing, school building.'

Stella snorted, “oh my gosh, we _do_ totally look like we're wearing the school.”

“That's why the colour scheme looked so familiar!” Aisha chuckled as well as she zipped up one of the jackets she'd found. “But in all seriousness, if we're all going out their to look for other survivors, we should take some of these clothes with us, chances are, if the others _are_ here, they'll be wearing these weird uniforms too.”

“Why are we even wearing them though, how did we even get here?” Stella asked, pausing to let out a quiet 'aha' as she located an actual backpack, “last thing I remember,” she checked a pair of jeans for sizing, “we were tracking down rumours of the Trix returning.”

“That's right,” Aisha agreed, slowing to a stop, two jackets in hand, “we were on Guillame, heading to the lost temple of Naois in the valley of Ragna.”

Bloom clapped twice again, 'through narrow pathway, wave of shadow and sleeping.'

“Yeah,” Stella agreed, “that's the last thing I remember too. But Tecna, Musa and Flora were definitely with us, so where are they now.”

“Maybe where ever the back of the plane is? Or somewhere in between,” Aisha suggested, handing the jackets to Stella to put in the bag, “I was a few dozen metres away, I woke up in a snow drift, from the furrow though I rolled for long way. The snow probably saved my life.”

Stella stepped across the debris to hug her friend, “I'm glad you're okay.”

“Well, apart from the ankle,” Aisha shrugged.

“Oh,” Stella dove back into the piles of clothes, re-emerging with a some neck ties, “sit down, I'll wrap your ankle.”

“ _I'll_ wrap my ankle,” Aisha argued as she sat, “I took the first aid course, you keep getting those clothes for the others.”

Bloom clapped, 'food, water?'

“Good thinking,” Stella went back to searching as Aisha did her best to wrap her sprained ankle with the ties.

“Considering the state of the plane,” she said, “we're incredibly lucky in terms of injuries.”

'Lucky, when, find others,' Aisha sighed and nodded in agreement.

“Right,” Stella looked over at the sound of Aisha's voice, speaking up Aisha explained, “we're not lucky unless the others were lucky, we aren't lucky until we find them.”

“Yeah... at least there's plenty of of ice for your ankle?” Aisha snorted and Bloom wheezed. “Sorry sweetie,” Stella cringed in Bloom's direction, but the ginger waved her off.

“Alright,” several minutes later, Stella dropped some bags by her friends, “I found a few bars and some water and a couple of sodas, there was also a small medical kit in one of the bags. Most of the clothes look suited for warmer weather though, and...”

Stella looked uncomfortable, but at Aisha's enquiring hum, she continued.

“There's an axe, I think it's one of those emergency axe's Bloom's dad showed us when we visited several months back. I think we should take it.”

“Agreed,” Aisha said as Bloom gave a double thumbs up, “we don't know what's out there,” Aisha nodded to the world beyond the plane, “and we don't know if the other's are trapped, we may need it to free them.”

A cold wind blew into what remained of the cabin, and Bloom signed, 'definitely need fire wood.' The other two nodded in agreement.

“I saw some books, they looked like text books, but there were notebooks too,” Stella moved back into the baggage, “we can use the lighter paper to help start fires, but I didn't see anything that might make a spark.”

“This thing's made of metal,” Aisha gestured to the plane, “I'm pretty sure there's some scrap pieces outside, we can grab some of those and find a rock, or we can rub sticks if we find any, there's certainly enough trees out there.” She looked outside for a moment, “Whatever the case, we need to start moving, we have no idea how much daylight is left, and we have to track down the others.”

“Right,” Stella nodded, wielding the axe with little skill, “I just need,” she grabbed one of the hard-case suitcases and emptied it, “a few seconds.” Throwing the bags she'd filled with supplies into it, along with the notebooks and the axe, Stella zipped it back up and began tying belts and neckties to it.

Moments later she had a functional harness to pull the suit case along.

“I figured my pulling it would be less work than trying to _carry_ it all, since you two can't really help any way.”

As the trio finally stepped out into the snow and began tracking back along the debris path, Stella paused to adjust the angle of the case, so the sloped and curved shape acted more like a sled. Aisha stooped to pick up a few pieces of twisted scrap metal and shoved them into the empty bag she'd talked Stella into giving her.

Bloom just tried to breathe and walk at the same time.

* * *

Musa woke screaming, her right arm twisted at an awkward angle beneath her. The sheer cold hit her moments later as she finally rolled to a position that didn't hurt quite as much. Her whimpers were eaten up by the snow around her, every noise she made was muffled by the frozen forest around her.

Somewhere above her metal creaked and scrapped against stone.

Slowly, in shaking, trembling inches, she managed to get herself upright. She looked up and felt her stomach jolt, the actual cold was the only thing that kept her from feeling the cold chill of terror as she spotted the back half of a very small plane shifting precariously ten meters up in the outcropping of a short cliff.

With dawning realisation, Musa looked at where she'd been lying, and the depth of the snow around her compared to the rest of the ground.

Her arm was broken, no doubt about it, but a fall that short and into snow this deep, her arm shouldn't have been broken at all. Her magic would have...

A second jolt of terror rocked through her as Musa finally noticed past the pain: her magic was gone.

"Hello?!" Above her, Flora's shaking and confused voice cried out from the plane wreck.

"Flora!" Musa called back, "are you okay?"

There was a pause, and then: "I think so? Tecna's head is bleeding though, she's having trouble focusing. Are the others with you?"

Musa looked around quickly, but the area held nothing but rocks and trees and more snow.

"No, it's just me," Musa admitted, "my arm's broken, and I... Flora, is your magic okay?"

There was another pause, and Musa thought she heard talking before a quiet 'thump-thump' and the plane tail shifted on it's perch. A short scream came from within.

"Don't move!" Musa screamed, panic welling inside her, "you're ten meters up at least and halfway off the edge!"

"Musa!" Tecna's voice called out, something in the shape of the sound was slurred though, "I need you to tell me exactly what you see, how precarious is our situation?!"

Musa huffed, a half-hysteric laugh that was more a breath than a true laugh, and mutter, "very."

Repositioning her broken arm into the least painful position, Musa began describing what she could see, even with a bump on the head, Tecna would figure something out.

Right?

* * *

The place where Fenna and Alvar existed was not a place most of the time. At present, it was a warm log cabin with a crackling fire that pushed back the outside cold with ease.

“This is an unfair trial,” Alvar scowled out the window, staring down at the ground far, far below.

“It is not a trial, it's an attack,” Fenna replied, a large board carved into a map covered the table before her, from a box she pulled out a few tiny objects and placed them down on the map.

“Did you just make things easier?” Alvar asked, spinning as she felt the magic sparkle over the map.

“There is no end game event,” Fenna replied, straightening to her full height, her chin jutting out in defiance. “We will need to craft one, and for that to happen, this scenario must be winnable.”

Alvar smirked lightly and nodded in agreement.

This world was bound by rules, but the trio of witches who'd triggered the trials weren't playing by them. This world was a quest, not a prison, not a punishment, and certainly not a means of execution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Winx go searching for rumours of the Trix and find themselves on the world of Guillame where they are swept up in a dark shadow while navigating a thin passageway in the rocks.  
> The shadow was an attack of sorts sent by the Trix, it was specifically targeted at Bloom, but the rest of the Winx (in moments they don't remember) refused to let her go, so all six of them were swept up in the magic and taken to a place known only as 'The Proving Grounds.'  
> There they experience a 'simulation' where death is a very real consequence of failure.  
> The 'simulation' was based on Bloom's fears, since she was the target, made of a world only she could conceive, a world without magic, and the unending tundra of a desolate frozen world. Given the Nature of the Proving Grounds, the scenario is not without hope, there is life in the frozen wastes, if the Winx can bring themselves to look.  
> There is also and 'end game', but as far as they know, the only objective they have, is to survive.
> 
> In order to give the scenario some logical consistency, the scene plays like the Winx were body swapped with a non-magical AU version of themselves, where Alfea is an all girls "catholic" school on a decently sized island off the coast of mainland wherever, and they were being flown one way or the other for various reasons on a smallish plane, which crashed in the remote region they were flying over.


End file.
